Modem Operandi
by Fiona Robinson
Summary: Amanda and Lee battle security breaches at the Agency and Internet crime
1. Modem Operandi

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Modem Operandi

By Fiona Robinson

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Disclaimer: the characters in this story belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers Inc.. The plot, with its probable inaccuracies and wild speculations, is mine. Enjoy. And as always, thanks to GW, the voice of reason in all stories SMK.

Amanda King sighed and looked at her watch. She was running late, again. For her entire life she had prided herself on being prompt - at least when it was important. Lately, she had struggled to make it to every appointment on time. 

She carefully pulled into the parking lot at International Federal Film and grabbed her identification badge from her purse. She contemplated the new color, thinking about the advanced security clearance she'd been granted just the week before. Her promotion still felt strange. She still couldn't believe she'd earned it.

"And that's exactly what you did do," said her Section Chief, as he granted it to her. "If anyone thinks you're getting special treatment they can look at your test scores. I don't think I ever scored as high as you do."

Amanda had rolled her eyes, laughing. "Oh, come on," she'd said, giving him a shove. "I'm sure your scores were just as high, if not higher."

Now, as she rode the elevator down six floors below ground to the Section Chief's office, and the meeting she was late for, she turned her accomplishments over in her mind. In the past fifteen years, she had advanced from civilian to rookie agent to senior level operative with minimum difficulty, but not without personal cost. Any agent, she reasoned, incurred personal costs. She had found an aptitude for investigative work - some people said she had a sixth sense, but she simply maintained that common sense made her a success. A housewife might have seemed like a strange candidate for a career in intelligence, but Amanda believed that keeping one foot in the "real world" had kept her instincts fresh.

The funny thing about the real world was that those who lived in it had no idea what Amanda did for a living. She and her husband, Lee Stetson, had managed to not only keep their careers with the Agency a secret - when they had married twelve years ago they had managed to keep their relationship a secret, too. For just over six months, they had pretended they were only engaged, until they made their marriage "public" with a small ceremony in the backyard of Amanda's old house. It had seemed appropriate at the time, since Lee - code named Scarecrow - had spent a good portion of the previous three years knocking on Amanda's kitchen window, trampling her tulips, and trying to stay out of her mother's sight.

She settled her bag on her shoulder and thought of everything she needed to do before the day was out. She was meeting her mother for lunch, she had promised to give her younger son, Jamie, a lift to the mechanic that afternoon, and she had three reports to write and two new cases to review. Somehow, she was going to fit it all in.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Amanda stepped out into the buzzing bullpen and looked at her watch again. She had one minute to spare.

Amanda often marveled at how much "the business" had changed over the last decade or so. Now they were not only battling lunatics all over the world, they were battling lunatics with technology, who used their computers to buy guns, trade information, and manage alliances. Now, they had the Internet, and an entire computer could fit in the palms of their hands. Even as they sat around the boardroom table, trying to figure it all out, people were organizing revolutions, up-and downloading pornography, and stealing money. She sometimes thought about the Atari her boys had so desperately wanted, and how reluctant she had been to buy it for them, afraid they'd be addicted to Pac-Man. Now Philip created and broke codes on a computer in France, and when Jamie came over for dinner he talked about programs that manipulated light and shadow in his photographs, or put things in them that were never there at all.

She had adapted to all this much more readily than Lee, who still railed against e-mail and couldn't understand why anyone would want to surf the Net if they didn't have to. Amanda thought that aspect of his personality rather strange, since he hadn't really had a problem learning how to read a microdot or defuse a complicated bomb ten years before. She understood that those things were different, more "hands-on", and that the human element they required was important to him. He was, he told her once, afraid of intelligence becoming artificial.

And technology was precisely what had landed the group of agents in the conference room that morning. As the Section Chief stood in front of the group, Amanda listened to him tell them about a hacker who had managed to access Agency networks, despite the almost constantly changing, obscure codes. She thought of Philip, and wondered if he knew how to get into a system like the Agency's.

"I don't get it," she said, finally. "What are they looking at? Anything in particular?"

"We can't tell," her boss said, resting his palms on the table and looking at each agent carefully. "The first…sweep…whatever you want to call it that went on last night…accessed only low-security, low-priority files. It seemed random." He shook his head. "But it wasn't. The next sweeps accessed more files - more files with higher security. And those are only the files we know about. There could be others."

"Wait a minute," Amanda said, leaning forward in her chair. "Pete," she addressed an agent, their systems specialist, sitting to the right of the Chief, "if you access a file, doesn't the time and date show up on the system?"

"Not if you don't want it to," Pete Williams said, shrugging. "If they can break into our system, they can get around that."

Amanda shook her head. "So we're looking for a needle in a haystack, is what you're saying. We don't know what they're after."

Pete nodded. "Exactly."

Amanda sighed, leaning back in her chair. "Great. So what do we do now?"

"Pete's boys are taking a look at the files that have been accessed. They're trying to figure out if there's a pattern," said the Chief. He stood at the front of the room, scratching his beard, thoughtfully. "Once we figure out what they're after, we can make a definite move to shut them down."

"Or at least smoke them out," Pete added.

"Do we even have any idea what kind of technology they're using?" Amanda wondered, absently rolling her pen between her thumb and fingertip.

Pete shook his head. "Nope. Not at all. It might not even be dependent on technology. It might be dependent on how smart they are, how familiar they are with our system."

"Could it be an inside job?" Amanda asked.

"That's always a possibility."

Amanda sighed. She hated that sometimes the first thought she had was whether a fellow agent had betrayed them, but every time there had been a security leak in the past, it had been due to something an agent had done, intentionally or not. She wanted to trust her coworkers, and she liked to believe that people who worked in normal offices could do that. Even if they really couldn't.

She looked at their Section Chief, who'd been taking in the exchange silently, stroking his beard and thinking about what Pete was telling them. That this was a tough one, that they were up against more than they had been in the past.

"I know we're dependent on Pete's team to figure out what's being targeted," the Chief said, "I just wanted to give you all the heads-up, because you're probably going to hear from us again sometime this afternoon."

"Anything else?" asked Sheila Marler, a young blond rookie to Amanda's left.

"That's it.…Oh, wait. You all know you have to have your department expense records ready for the auditors at the end of this week, right? I'm not saying they're definitely going to take a look, but I don't want to see any of you coming in here with shoe boxes." He grinned as the agents in the room collectively groaned and laughed. "That's it, people. You're free to go." He watched as the group stood all at once, discussing their new developments as they filed out the door. Pete Williams picked up his belongings and headed out of the boardroom, his pace brisk. His team had an incredible amount of work to finish before the day was out. Sheila Marler poked her head back through the doorway and caught her superior's eye.

"There's a call for you on line two," she said, and her boss nodded, following her out of the boardroom, leaving his agents to catch the curveball he'd just thrown them.

Amanda watched him leave, but stayed in the silent boardroom, thumbing through a manila folder and mulling over what they'd been told in the last hour. She stayed, engrossed in her latest assignment, until she heard a slight noise in the doorway and looked up to see the Section Chief. His tall frame filled the entryway for a moment before he caught Amanda's eye and gestured to her.

"Hey," he said, his green eyes twinkling. "Is that interesting?"

Her face relaxed in a smile and she shrugged. "Oh, you know."

"Come here for a minute." He bobbed his head in the direction of his office, and Amanda nodded and followed him inside.

She raised her eyebrows and followed him into his office. "What's up?"

Lee Stetson turned and grinned at his wife. "I got the tickets," he said, holding them up in front of her. "There's no going back now."

Amanda laughed. "There's always a possibility, Stetson," she teased. "I won't believe you until we're on the plane - not when this place is involved." She gestured around his office, referring to the organization that had not only thrown them together, but was a constant obstacle in keeping them that way.

But Lee shook his head. "Nope, not this time. We're going to meet Philip in Paris, and that's the end of it."

"We have to get this case out of the way, first," Amanda reminded him, and for a moment Lee didn't feel like the Section Chief at all. He felt like a field agent, codenamed Scarecrow, who had been partnered with a suburban housewife named Mrs. King.

"Yeah," he nodded, scratching the beard that he had grown for an undercover assignment four years ago and never shaved off. "Well, I'm sure we'll figure it out. Especially with you on the team."

"Oh, you." She laughed. "I don't know what goes through your head sometimes."

Lee's grin turned wicked. "You wouldn't believe it. Especially during meetings like the one we just had…." His grin widened as he watched her cheeks color and she shook her head, and it delighted him that after twelve years of marriage he could still make her blush. He leaned forward and brushed his mouth against hers. "You have got to stop wearing that perfume to work," he said softly, "or everyone's going to think I'm the security breach."

Amanda didn't answer for a moment; she looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes, knowing perfectly well the effect she had on him. "Maybe it isn't the perfume at all," she said primly, still holding the file folder against her chest. "Maybe it's just me."

Lee laughed, wishing they both had a free afternoon - certainly an afternoon without a security leak hanging over their heads. "I'm sure it is just you, Mrs.…King."

"Stetson," she said. "I'm only Mrs. King at work. If you're talking to me, I'm Mrs. Stetson."

"Always Mrs. Stetson." He looked at the lapel of her jacket. "Except on your security pass." She had kept King at the Agency to keep the connection between them to a minimum. Not that everyone didn't already know they were married, but Amanda was adamant about separating her identities at work. "Just think of it as a code name," she said to him. "You're Scarecrow, and I'm Mrs. King."

Now Amanda grinned at him, her primness gone, and leaned over the folders she was holding to kiss his cheek. "Yes," she said. "Always Mrs. Stetson, except on my security pass…and the passports with my alias on them, and on my false social security cards, and on the nameplate on my desk in the Q-Bureau…." She shook her head. "I'm not Mrs. Stetson nearly enough."

"No. You're not."

"What are we going to do about that?"

"Well…" Lee paused, looking to the ceiling, as if for guidance. "There's always the possibility of a nice, quiet evening with your husband, to reaffirm your identity."

"I like the sound of that," Amanda said, laughing softly. "What would that include?"

"Dinner, wine, maybe a little romance…."

"You really know how to show a girl a good time, don't you, Stetson?"

"I do have a reputation for it."

Amanda bit her lip. "Except it can't be tonight."

"Aw, Amanda. Why not?"

"Late meeting with crypto. I know it seems crazy to have it now, but we haven't been able to coordinate our schedules in weeks."

"Neither have we," Lee protested, clearly disappointed. He sighed. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow's possible," she said. She smiled, suddenly. "I'll make sure it's possible if you make sure it's possible."

Lee grinned. "Deal. I'll even make reservations."

She smiled. "I'll even get that black nightgown out from the back of the closet."

Lee's eyes lit up, and Amanda laughed as a knock sounded on his office door. "That's my cue," she said, stealing a quick kiss before she opened the door to admit Pete. "Hi, Pete," she said. "Bye, Pete. See you later, Mr. Stetson."

Lee laughed as she shut the door, and turned to Pete. "What's up?" he asked. He hadn't been expecting Pete to make such a speedy appearance.

"I just wanted to let you know…I think this thing goes much farther than we can tell right now. My team has figured out a way to keep them out for now, but I don't think it's going to last."

Lee nodded, moving to sit behind his desk. "Damn," he muttered. "And there's no pattern?"

"Nothing discernible. Yet." Pete shrugged. "Maybe another sweep isn't such a bad thing. Maybe they'll give us an idea of what they're looking for."

"Yeah, but…" Lee shook his head. "All that information is classified for a reason, right? We can't just let anyone look at it."

"I'll see what we can do about making our firewall stronger. Maybe we can figure it out without really letting them see anything."

Lee watched Pete turn and head out the doorway, as always quick and efficient. He leaned back in his chair and looked around his office. It sometimes amazed him that he sat on the other side of a desk, dishing out assignments, advice, and reprimands to his agents. He'd spent more than his share of time sitting in the chairs across the room from him, hearing again and again from Billy how he had to follow the rules, how he had to solve his cases by the book, or he'd be suspended again.

He wasn't a typical Section Chief - Billy had known he wouldn't be when he offered Lee the job. For the most part, the position was considered a desk job, but Lee had taken it back out into the field. He felt that the worst thing he could do was be out of touch with what his agents dealt with - so he regularly took cases himself, spent nights on stakeouts or followed paper trails. When Billy had been the Chief the Agency had been a different animal - there had been a Cold War on and Dr. Smyth had been in power. Agency hierarchy had been clearly delineated. Today, Lee found that counter-espionage was completely different than it had once been, and the Agency, as an organization, was much "flatter." He wasn't sure if it had become what Harry Thornton, the founder, had envisioned, but he was called onto the carpet a lot less than he had been ten years ago.

He thought of Amanda, suddenly, because she had often been subjected to Billy's lectures with - or because of - him. It was funny - in some ways she was as by-the-book as the straightest agent, but in others her instinct got the better of her and she ended up taking things into her own hands, much like he had. He knew that becoming an agent hadn't been easy for her - that other agents had referred to her as "Scarecrow's protégé" or worse. The Happy Housewife. But she had proven herself, and he had absolutely no doubts about her abilities. Ever.

Of course, that didn't mean he didn't worry about her safety - he often did. He thought of the night before, watching her brush her hair before bed, and how for some reason his eyes had lingered on the scar on her back - the exit wound from a bullet that had nearly ended their life together before it had begun. Oddly enough, he had nearly lost her when they weren't out on a case.

It had taken him a long time to let go and realize that she was an adult who had chosen the life she had, and often enjoyed it. He had always assumed she'd want to give it up as soon as possible - maybe that she wouldn't want more than him or their marriage - but that hadn't been the case at all. He occasionally had to remind himself that there had been a time when he'd loved it, too, when nothing had been more exciting than cracking a case. 

And now, he had a huge case to crack. And Amanda was going to crack it with him.

Dotty West was looking at her watch as her daughter hurried up her sidewalk, adjusting the purse on her shoulder. "You're late," was all she said, smiling.

"Oh, Mother, I know," Amanda said, leaning in to kiss Dotty's cheek. "I'm sorry. The meeting ran late. You haven't been waiting long, have you?"

Dotty shook her head. "I watered my geraniums," she said, gesturing to the bright blooms lining her path. "What do you think?"

"Oh…they're lovely. You always grow the loveliest geraniums." Amanda admired them for a minute, then sighed. "Well, what do you feel like? The tea house two blocks down, or that funny sandwich place near the mall?"

"The tea house," Dotty decided. "I need a walk." She glanced at the lapel of Amanda's jacket, suddenly. "My goodness, that isn't the best picture of you, is it?"

"What?" Amanda looked down in horror to see her Agency identification badge, clipped to her coat. She felt sick, wondering how she'd managed to walk right past Mrs. Marsden without turning it in. "Oh. No. But it's just my security pass. You know, it's like a driver's license. No one expects the picture to be nice."

"No. I guess not," Dotty agreed, laughing as she swung open the gate. Amanda dragged the pass from her lapel and shoved it into her bag, thankful that her mother wasn't wearing her reading glasses.

"What do you need a security pass for, anyway, dear?" Dotty wondered.

"Oh, you know…Every federal organization has them. They don't want just anyone walking in off the street."

Dotty nodded, the subject suddenly forgotten, and Amanda let out a deep breath. She watched her mother walk briskly down the street, stopping for a moment to look at the neighbor's tulips, and thought how amazing it was that Dotty, at seventy-five, was as energetic as ever. She had nearly remarried a few years before, and probably would have been Dotty Bachmeyer if she and Gordon hadn't decided at the last minute to skip the nuptials and, as Dotty put it, "shack up." She had thought the entire family would be horrified, but Amanda was simply happy to see her mother get what she wanted - Gordon - and Philip and Jamie liked to tease her about it.

She and Gordon lived in his small but comfortable two-story house, about ten minutes away from Lee and Amanda, and not far from what had once been Dotty's condominium. She had missed having a garden and living in a place that let her walk everywhere, and her home with Gordon was perfect for all that. Jamie, who practically lived in his studio, was a frequent dinner guest.

Lee and Amanda had moved away from 4247 Maplewood Drive shortly after Philip went away to college. Amanda had thought Lee would have a problem with living in what had once been Joe's house, but he'd insisted that he had enough memories there that didn't even come close to including Joe that he didn't mind. "For instance," he'd said when he moved in, "I have an intimate relationship with the tulips under your kitchen window. And the trellis outside your bedroom." But now they lived in a smaller house, more suited to two people who were rarely home, and their things mixed together perfectly.

"So how is that husband of yours, Amanda?" Dotty asked over lunch. 

"Oh, you know. Working hard," Amanda said, sipping her tea. "How's Gordon? Still renovating?"

Dotty rolled her eyes. "He's at Home Depot as we speak," she said, pulling a piece of crust from her sandwich and chewing it thoughtfully, before steering the conversation back to her chosen subject. "I haven't seen Lee in weeks."

"There's, uh, a lot to do. Busy season."

Dotty nodded. "Mm-hm." She stirred sugar into her cup of tea. "Does he still have that beard?"

"Yes, he still has that beard."

"I don't understand why anyone with such a handsome face would want to cover it up with hair," Dotty muttered, shaking her head. She had told Lee this, on more than one occasion, and he'd simply laughed.

"He's still handsome," Amanda said, now.

"Oh, I know." Dotty agreed. "He just looks more…responsible…with it."

"Well, he isn't," Amanda said, picking onions out of her salad. "We bought our tickets to see Philip, though," she continued. "There's no backing down now."

"I seem to recall you saying that last time, right before you canceled the trip."

"Oh, last time was my fault, Mother. Lee was all set to go, and then I got that…ear infection." Her ear infection had actually been the aftereffects of a gun going off at alarmingly close range to her head. She had been on an assignment with two other agents that had nearly gotten all three of them killed. She had thought for days that she was going to lose her hearing - the constant ringing had nearly driven her insane - but there had been no permanent damage.

"You haven't had any more of those, have you?"

"Oh, no, just the one."

"Because you never once had one as a child. You always had the most efficient Eustachian tubes."

Amanda laughed a little, taking a bite of her sandwich. "I'm sure my ears are fine, now," she told her mother. "And nothing - absolutely nothing - is going to stop us going on this trip."

"How's your mother doing?" Lee asked that night, as Amanda sat on the sofa looking over some notes from her late meeting. He had been enjoying a rare moment of idleness, reading the morning paper he never got to read in the morning anymore.

"Oh, she's fine. She asked after you."

"Hm? In a good way, I hope."

Amanda laughed. "It's always in a good way. She loves you."

"So you say," Lee said. "She's still a mother-in-law, and anything that's wrong with your life is automatically my fault."

"There isn't anything wrong with my life," she said, surprised, and Lee laughed. "And you'd have to do something pretty horrible for her to even think about disliking you."

"Yeah," Lee chuckled. "I guess I would, wouldn't I?" His forehead creased, suddenly. "Are she and Gordon coming for dinner this weekend?"

"Sunday. With Jamie."

"Hm." Lee folded the paper and put his feet up on the coffee table. "I wonder if Jamie'll be able to keep his eyes open through dinner."

"Well, you know he's been travelling all over the place, and – hey, feet off the table, I have rules, you know – he didn't choose a nine to five kind of job." Amanda leaned over and smacked Lee's shins with the file folder in her hand. He grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her into his lap.

"You never stop mothering, do you?'

"It's in my bones, I guess. Besides, I never had any of your babies to mother so I've got to let it out somewhere. Your feet on the table is the last stand, so to speak." His gaze held hers for a moment, and she waited for an "I wish", but none came. She decided to prompt him.

"Do you ever wish we'd had kids?" she asked suddenly, settling into his lap.

Lee gave her a gentle squeeze and shrugged. "Hardly ever," he admitted, and he was telling the truth. "You?"

She sighed, stroking his cheek. "I think about what a little girl with your eyes would be like," she said, and then smiled at him. "You know. And sometimes I wonder why it never happened." They had both been for tests, when they first began wondering, and everything seemed normal. When months - and then years - went by and there wasn't even a hint of a pregnancy in their future, they elected not to pursue fertility treatments. At the time, Amanda was watching one of her best friends' marriages dissolve because of procedures that were grueling to her physically and financially. She remembered feeling an incredible relief when Lee finally suggested they concentrate their efforts on the family they had. 

Lee nodded. "There was a reason," he said. "Like that I was meant to have you all to myself."

"That's greedy," she said, laughing.

He nibbled on her earlobe. "I'm a greedy man."

"Mm. It seems that way. Funny how it took me so long to notice," she breathed, concentrating on what he was doing.

"That was due to my superior skills as a spy," he murmured, his fingers finding her blouse buttons. His mouth covered hers and she leaned back in the chair with him, only to let out a squeal of surprise as Lee suddenly jumped. "What the hell was that?" he yelped, suddenly digging around in the chair, searching for the source of a strange vibration.

Amanda burst out laughing. "You're sitting on your cell phone, my superior spy."

When she stopped laughing, Amanda realized that Billy Melrose was on the other end of the cell phone conversation. And since he was calling on Lee's "work phone" Amanda had an idea that could only mean one thing: Billy had a hot tip for them. Since retiring as section chief, and making way for Lee, Billy had taken what Amanda estimated to be the sum total of a week off in three years. "You can take the boy out of the Agency…" he'd told her, and she suspected the same would be true for her husband.

"Billy thinks the breaches might have something to do with Senator Birdsell," Lee said when he got off the phone. He watched Amanda as she moved around the kitchen, putting dishes away, and couldn't help grinning at her as she turned to look at him.

"Senator Birdsell? Isn't he crusading for tougher Internet policing?" Amanda asked.

Lee nodded. "He's been knee-deep in that and a couple of other things, too. Pornography laws are a big favorite of his. He was also involved with us a while back - I can't remember the specifics, but I think it had something to do with offshore banking."

Amanda nodded. "I remember that."

"Francine's section," he said, leaning against the counter. "She was his contact."

"Are you going to talk to her?"

Lee nodded. "Tomorrow." There had been a time when he would have rushed over to the Agency, stayed up all night chasing a lead, and Amanda was surprised that he wasn't doing that now.

"It can wait until morning?" she asked, a little confused.

"Yeah, it can wait until morning."

Amanda peered at him, running a dishtowel through her fingers. "Are you all right?"

Lee nodded. "I'm fine. I just know that it can wait. The boys are working on keeping whoever it is out, and Francine's at some function with Jonathan…and I'm here with you." He grinned. "So it can wait."

She contemplated that, then picked up a wine glass. "So since you're here with me, do you want a drink?" she asked, laughing a little as he nodded and headed for the wine rack. He picked up a bottle of Merlot and held it up for her inspection. Amanda nodded. "Perfect," she said, and he gave her a quick kiss, opening a drawer and hunting for the corkscrew.

As Lee poured the wine he suddenly remembered a time when Amanda had admitted to him she didn't have a clue about wine. "Joe always bought it," she'd told him over dinner at Emelio's. "And he bought whatever the partners were drinking." He thought it was funny that she'd changed as much as she had, yet still stayed the same. She was leaning against the counter, beside him, and he reached out and drew the dishtowel from where she'd flung it over her shoulder. She smiled at him as it hit the countertop, caught his hand and kissed his fingers.

"You don't really want wine," she said to him, her brown eyes twinkling. "You want dessert."

Lee laughed. "I want both." He touched his glass to hers. "You don't have work to do, do you?"

Amanda hesitated, then shook her head as he leaned in to kiss her. "Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow."

"Are you sure?" Lee asked, his mouth against hers. "You hesitated a little there…is there something you need to work on?"

"No," she breathed, tasting wine on his mouth, her fingers reaching for his shirt buttons. "Nothing beyond getting you out of this shirt."

"Now you see, those are the assignments I should be giving you at work," he said against her neck. "I should make you Special Agent in charge of Section Chief Wellness."

"I am," she said, untucking his shirt, "I just don't get paid for it."

Lee ran his fingers through her smooth, dark hair. The scent of her shampoo tantalized his senses and mixed with the feeling of her fingers on his skin to make him giddy.

"Well, Special Agent," he said, "let's go into the other room."

Now Amanda grinned, drawing away from him. "What's the matter, Scarecrow?" she asked. "Aren't you up for a little…" she patted the worksurface behind her, "encounter?"

Lee laughed again. "I was thinking of something a little more comfortable," he said, replaying an old joke between them. When they had moved into the house, and "christened" every room, the kitchen had been a particular disaster.

Amanda picked up her wine and turned for the door. "Race you to the fireplace," she said over her shoulder, and he followed her back into the living room.


	2. Modem Operandi

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Modem Operandi - Part 2

By Fiona Robinson

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(see part 1 for disclaimer) 

Francine Desmond knocked on Lee's office door twice, both brief, efficient raps with her knuckles. Her blond hair twisted into a smooth pleat, her makeup perfect, Francine had changed little over the years, except to soften toward Amanda. Her promotion, which had come before Billy's retirement and at the recommendation of her Section Chief, had proven to be the job she'd always wanted. Francine loved organizing things, and people, and ensuring that her team was running smoothly satisfied her.

Lee's muffled "Come in" was signal enough for her to open the door, and she moved into the office, sitting down in one of the tweedy chairs that had been recovered for the fourth time, but always seemed to look as if they needed recovering again.

"What's this I hear about the breach having something to do with my section?" she asked, leaning back in her chair. Lee was trying to plug in his laptop, and Francine suppressed a smile as he cursed at the tangle of cables on his desk. "The gray one goes in there," she told him, watching him struggle with a port on the back of the unit.

"Dammit, I hate these machines," he muttered, giving up and tossing the cables aside, hoping that Amanda would come in and fix it later.

"I think a little Computer 101 is in order. The first step is overcoming the fear, Scarecrow," Francine said, losing her battle with the smile. Lee simply rolled his eyes. "So…what's the deal?"

"We think it has something to do with Senator Birdsell," Lee said. "It's the only common denominator we've managed to come up with."

Francine chewed on that for a moment, a little surprised. "Really. Well. What, in particular?"

"That's just it. I was hoping you could shed some light on what we've found."

Francine shook her head. "I'll run it by my team, but I'm not altogether sure they'll be much of a help."

Lee nodded. "Okay. I can't ask for much more than that."

"You know he's been really active in lobbying for legislation controlling the Internet," she said. "But I don't see how that would make him a target."

"What about the work he did with us? I don't remember the specifics, but didn't he ruffle a few feathers then?"

Francine narrowed her eyes. "Are you thinking that this is an inside job?"

"I'm thinking everything and nothing right now, Francine. We have nothing to go on beyond that they can break any kind of code we set up."

Francine nodded. An inside job made sense. And it wasn't like it hadn't happened before.

"What if the Senator is just a red herring?" she wondered. "He doesn't seem to have been involved in enough for someone to hack our system looking for information. I mean, our surveillance tells us that he fulfills his political agendas like a bull in a china shop, but he's basically clean otherwise."

Lee nodded. "It's definitely a possibility," he conceded. "Amanda suggested that this morning." He watched as Francine rolled her eyes.

"Of course she did," she said, before letting her face relax in a smile. "I should have known."

Lee grinned at her, pleased to see that the competition Francine always felt with Amanda was nowhere near as intense as it had once been. The two women had settled into a strange friendship - they weren't close, but the animosity they had once felt for each other seemed to have been replaced with a healthy professional respect.

"Anyway," he began, trying again to hook up his computer. He was distracted mid-thought as he finally hooked up his network connection, and Francine leaned forward in her chair to plug in the notebook for him. Lee powered up and sat back in his chair. "Anyway, you never know, he may be knee deep in this stuff somehow." Absently, he checked his email, his brow wrinkling as a strange message appeared in his Inbox.

"What the hell…" he muttered, leaning forward, interrupting Francine mid-sentence. "Sorry, there's something really weird here. Take a look at this…."

Francine came around his desk and peered at his computer screen. "Watch your back, Scarecrow. There are eyes everywhere…" she read, her own forehead wrinkling in confusion. "I usually just get dirty jokes. What've you been up to?"

"I don't know. I wonder who the hell it's from."

"Try replying to it," Francine suggested.

Lee shook his head. "I don't like replying to stuff like this. It's weird." They both looked up at a tap on the door, and Amanda poked her head inside.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked, and the two of them shook their heads.

"Come here and look at this." He watched as Amanda stood on the other side of him, her reaction similar to his and Francine's as she read the message.

"Strange. Who sent it?"

"We don't know."

"Why don't you reply to it?"

"Lee isn't comfortable with that," Francine put in, and Amanda smiled faintly at the sweet tone her coworker used to taunt her husband.

"Well, maybe if you hit the reply button, you'll know who it's from. Sometimes it shows up in the message," Amanda suggested, and Lee reluctantly did so. "Hm," she said, looking at his screen.

"What?"

"It says the message came from inside the Agency. See that tag at the end of the address? And it says at the top that the mail is internal."

Lee let out a long breath, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Amanda, at Francine, then he picked up the phone and called Pete Williams.

It was two o'clock before Lee finally managed to grab a sandwich and coffee at his desk. Amanda had brought it to him, her face showing signs of concern, as it always did when he worked through meals. She had nursed him through enough colds and viruses to know that when Lee skipped enough meals, he usually caught whatever was going around.

"You're going to get run down and then what good will you be?" she asked him, neatly folding his jacket and setting it over the back of a chair.

"I know, I know…." Lee grinned at her from across the room, suddenly. "Did it ever occur to you that I might just want you to nurse me back to health?"

"Several times," she admitted. "But you're out of luck this week. I've got a caseload that even the legendary Scarecrow would have a problem with. Someone's gone a little crazy on the job board."

She gave Lee a pointed look, and he let out a long breath. "It's only because you're capable," he said. "We're still on for tonight, aren't we?"

"I'm going to be there, even if you're not."

A beep made Lee look at his computer, and he reached over to check his email as he took a bite of ham and cheese on whole wheat. "Damn," he muttered. "Another message."

"Really?" Amanda sprung up from her chair, peering over Lee's shoulder at the screen.

"He wants to meet," Lee said, scanning the message. "Nine o'clock, near the Mall." He leaned back in his chair and looked at his wife. "Are you going to be lonely in that black nightgown?"

Lee leaned back in his chair, rubbing his forehead and closing his tired eyes. It had been an incredibly long day, and it wasn't close to over. He knew that there were probably only two or three people he could trust with this investigation. He knew that Anne Hendrickson, a slight, dark-haired agent from Pete Williams' group, was new to the Agency. But he couldn't discount what she'd told him - that she was sure that Sheila Marler was involved in the security breaches in some way. When Lee had called Pete Williams into his office, the other agent had been surprised at the allegations that Lee - trying to protect Anne - had made in her absence.

The door swung open and his wife breezed in, her usual energetic self. Lee caught a whiff of her perfume as she crossed the room, and he wished again that they could spend a quiet evening alone for once.

"What time are we leaving?" Amanda asked, dropping her purse on a chair. 

"We?" Lee asked, his eyebrows raised. "I don't think the message said anything about you coming along."

"Lee…" Amanda faced him, her hands on her hips. "You are not going to meet this person alone. You know you need backup."

"Amanda, I'll take backup. You can go home and dig out that nice nightgown of yours and get a fire going."

She shook her head. "I'm going to be your backup."

"I don't think so. I'll take Scott Hanson with me."

Amanda drew her brows together. "When did you get to be so difficult?"

"When did you get to be so stubborn?"

"You're impossible."

Lee grinned. "You like impossible."

"You know if you don't bring me, I'll just follow you."

Lee laughed. "Now who's impossible?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "What time do we leave?"

Lee looked at her for a moment, shaking his head. He sighed. "Eight thirty."

"I can't believe we had to cancel another dinner," Lee muttered, pocketing his keys. "Married people are supposed to go shopping for electronic equipment or wallpaper together, not stand in a park waiting for an informant."

Amanda laughed a little. "We can still have dinner. It'll just be a late one." She turned her head as she heard a telephone ringing. She and Lee looked at each other, confused.

"Where's that coming from?" Lee asked, looking around. His eyes came to rest on a bank of pay phones near the curb.

"I thought you couldn't do that anymore," Amanda said, shoving her hands into her pockets. "Call pay phones."

"Not those ones," Lee agreed, heading toward them. "And somehow I doubt it's the Phone Company, conducting a user survey." He reached out a hand and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

The voice that met him was strange and deep - definitely digital - but the message was unmistakable. "Back off, Scarecrow, and take the Agency with you," it warned. "We know you think you're gaining on us," the voice says, "but you and Mrs. King have a long way to go yet. And you'd better watch your step."

"Who was it?" Amanda asked, hearing a loud click on the other end.

Lee shook his head, his brow wrinkling. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say it sounded like…Stephen Hawking."

"You mean computer-generated?" Amanda asked. Lee nodded.

"Weird," he muttered, shaking his head. "It told us to back off, and it knew about the Agency…"

"Really?" Amanda shook her head, then cast a glance behind her, feeling a sudden shiver run up her spine. "I don't like standing out here like this," she said, suddenly, feeling no comfort from the pistol holstered under her coat.

Lee nodded. "Let's get out of here," he agreed, his hand at the small of her back as they walked out of the square, back toward a busy street.

"I'm getting the boys to check out the phone," Lee said, dialing a number on his cell phone as he navigated the car through the dark streets.

"I wish you'd use hands-free," Amanda muttered, turning her face away.

Lee shot her a look across the car - both a warning that he didn't want to rehash the virtues of his cell phone and an indication that he couldn't talk now. She heard him give orders to someone in Surveillance, nearly running a red light as he told them which bank of phones he meant. Amanda closed her eyes and tried not to envision Lee's car meeting the back bumper of the car in front of them. Even after fifteen years, his driving habits sometimes set her teeth on edge.

He turned off his phone and tucked it between the seat and the gearshift. "There," he said, "all taken care of."

"Hm. So what do you think that was all about, anyway?" she asked, one eyebrow raised. 

Lee shrugged. "Someone's playing a little game, I suppose."

"Do you have any ideas about who it is?"

"A couple," Lee conceded. "I had an interesting chat with Anne Hendrickson this afternoon."

"Anne…" Amanda fell silent, searching for a face to put to the name.

"She's on Pete's team. I don't know if you've ever met her, she hasn't been here long," Lee said. "Anyway, she had a couple of interesting things to point out."

"Like?" Amanda prompted, frustrated with Lee's vagueness.

"Like…that the codes Pete is putting up are what Anne would consider state-of-the-art, unbreakable encryption. No one should be able to bust through them."

"So how are they?" Amanda wanted to know. "The sweeps are still going on, aren't they?"

Lee nodded. He shook his head, puzzled. "Anne thinks it's someone on Pete's team."

"You mean Anne thinks it's Pete."

Lee shook his head. "She doesn't, actually. She thinks it's Sheila."

"Did she talk to Pete about it?"

"No, she came straight to me. And I know, you don't do that unless you've got a reason to suspect the person above you. But I have a hard time believing that Pete's that good an actor."

"How are you going to check it out?"

Lee let out a long breath. "I don't know."

Amanda was waiting patiently for Lee in the passenger's side of his car the next morning. She had heard the shrill ring of the telephone as she'd opened the car door, but she hadn't gone back inside. Instead, she'd leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes, thinking about the quick dinner she and Lee had shared the night before, in an effort to salvage their "date". Too-salty Chinese take-out and cold green tea had made it feel like the working dinner it had been. She couldn't wait for their trip to Europe.

Eventually, Lee came out of the house, his trench coat billowing behind him in a sudden gust of wind. Amanda smiled to herself a little. Her heart still gave a little jump every time she saw him.

"What's so amusing?" he asked as he slid into the driver's seat.

She shrugged, leaning across the gearshift to kiss his cheek. "Just…thinking. Mm. You smell nice."

He smiled at her, one eyebrow raised. "You'd better not start anything," he said, starting the car. "I need a clear head today."

She laughed and settled back into her seat. "Who was on the phone?" 

"Graham, from Surveillance. He said the phone checked out clean, but he wasn't surprised. You don't need a blue box anymore to tap into a phone system."

"Computers again, huh?"

Lee shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know - that's one part of this whole thing I don't understand. I've got to leave that up to the experts, I guess."

"Hm."

"What?"

"Well, I was just thinking….It's hard to leave it up to the experts when someone's pointing a finger at one of them."

Lee just nodded. He was silent for most of the rest of the drive - Amanda knew he was thinking about who was involved in the breaches, and how. She'd been doing the same thing herself for what felt like days.

He turned into the Agency parking lot and looked at Amanda. "Billy's waiting upstairs for us. Do you think the two of you could try and figure some of this out?"

She nodded. "I'm sure we can. We'll give it a shot, anyway."

Lee stopped the car and leaned over to give her a quick kiss. "That's all I ask," he said, grinning as he pulled away and opened his car door.

Amanda parked her car in the wide, circular drive at the front of Senator Birdsell's mansion and climbed a few steps to the giant oak front doors. A butler answered moments after she rang the doorbell, his voice cool and formal.

"I'm Amanda King," she said. "The Senator is expecting me."

Even as she said it, she couldn't believe how strange things still sounded coming out of her mouth sometimes. She'd been a housewife when she'd started saying them - in many ways she still was that housewife, who looked at the Senator's house and thought what a job it must be to keep all the woodwork polished.

"Agent King," the Senator's deep voice made her turn, and she nodded and smiled at the handsome, white-haired man.

"Senator," she greeted, shaking the hand he offered. She had met him during a visit to the Agency - now that she thought about it, the visit had been with Pete's group.

"What did you want to see me about?" he asked, gesturing for her to sit in a large, leather wing chair.

Amanda cleared her throat, watching her posture as she settled into her seat. "Have you spoken to Lee Stetson today, sir?" 

The senator nodded. "Yes, he called me this morning, about a security breach at the Agency. What do I have to do with any of it?"

"Well, sir, it's kind of a strange thing - a lot of files have been accessed, and your name is popping up the most often."

The senator's brows drew together in a frown. "Am I a suspect?"

"No. Absolutely not, sir. We're worried about your safety. We'd like to step up security around here a little until we can figure out why they're accessing files that contain information about you."

Senator Birdsell nodded, looking a little uncomfortable. "What is it…you think they're going to do?"

"We don't know. Has anything strange happened in the last few days - have you received any strange phone calls or letters? Email?"

"No. Nothing." The senator grinned, suddenly. "I couldn't download my email if I tried. I'll check with my staff, but they inform me of things like this all the time."

She nodded, thinking of Lee. "All right, Senator. A team is on its way over right away. They'll try to be as unobtrusive as possible - we don't want to call any attention to this. And it may turn out to be nothing." Amanda didn't add that the team was also a way of keeping an eye on the Senator's activities. If he was lying to them, she had no doubt they'd find out about it soon enough.

But her gut told her the Senator wasn't the problem. He was vocal, yes, but he had always had the Agency on his side. 

Amanda stood with the senator, who again offered her his hand. "Thank you, Agent King."

She nodded. "We'll be in touch, sir."

Lee stood at the coffee station, pouring himself a cup of what he knew was stale coffee. His stomach lurched at the thought of drinking it, and something told him that any fuel it would give him would be false, but he needed the ritual. He was thinking.

He felt a presence beside him, and Anne Hendrickson was pouring herself a cup of hot water.

"Hello, Anne. How's it going?" he asked, casually, stirring nothing into his coffee.

"Fine, thanks." Anne nodded, averting her brown eyes, and reached for a tea bag out of the basket on the counter. "I need to amend my theory a bit."

Lee raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

Anne nodded, dunking the tea bag in her mug of hot water, leaning one hip against the counter as if she and Lee were discussing television from the night before. "I don't think she's working alone. Someone's running those breaches from outside."

"What makes you say that?"

"She's always with someone when they happen. Pete, me…Francine once. She's never at a computer when they happen."

Lee nodded. That in itself was suspicious to him.

"Do you think it's someone else from inside?"

Anne shrugged. "If she can give them the codes, it doesn't need to be. Does it?" 

Lee watched as she tossed the tea bag into the garbage and walked away from him. "No," he said to himself, "it doesn't."

Amanda and Billy Melrose sat together in the Q Bureau, hunched over files and printouts from the past couple of days, consulting the ever-growing list of files that had been accessed, and what could be in them. She had come back to the Agency convinced that the Senator had no part in the breach - but she couldn't ignore that his name had surfaced too many times to be a coincidence.

"It's ridiculous," Amanda said when she saw the pile. "There's a mountain of information here…"

"I know," Billy said, sighing. "But all we can do is look at it all." He looked at the boxes sitting on the floor beside him. "You'd think as an intelligence organization we'd do better with this," he groused. "This is the fourth time in fifteen years we think we've had a leak like this."

Amanda's mouth curved in a small smile. "I know."

"I'd like to say that when Smyth was around this was different, but it wasn't," he continued, discarding a folder and picking up another.

"No," Amanda agreed. "Well. I guess it's just part of getting a large group of egos together. We spend so much time working an angle, someone's bound to think that they can work an angle here."

Billy nodded. "Especially if the dollar figure is right."

"That's what I don't understand," Amanda said, leaning back in her chair. "If they aren't stealing any specific information, where's the incentive?"

Billy shrugged. "You've got me."

"Unless this isn't about stealing information at all. It could be about something else altogether."

Billy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we're looking for a connection here, right? And maybe there isn't one. I mean, maybe there's a pattern to the files that were accessed, but maybe it's covering up something else that's going on."

"That's a possibility. But don't get ahead of yourself, Amanda. We—" Billy paused as the telephone rang and Amanda scooped up the receiver. He watched her eyes widen in surprise, she nodded and jotted something down on a piece of paper.

"They think they know where the email is coming from," she said when she hung up the phone. "They gave me an address."

"Great. Are you going to try it?"

"Not yet. I want to see if we can figure out who it is, first." She paused, about to defer to Billy, but catching herself. He was nodding, agreeing with her, and turned back to the list of files. 

Two hours later, she came back to her desk with two cups of coffee to find her mail notification blinking. She leaned over to check it, her brows furrowing as the message popped up.

"Uh-oh," she said, setting down her coffee cup. "I've got one, now."

"What, a message?"

"Yeah. Whoever it is has decided to let me tell Lee they should meet." She shook her head, picking up the telephone to call her husband. "What am I, a dating service?"

Lee was nonplused when she told him about the message. "I'm supposed to drag myself out there so that he can decide to phone me again?"

"Apparently."

"Are you going to reply and ask him that?"

Amanda laughed. "No. I don't think we should let on that we can trace them until we have a better idea of who it might be."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Lee let out a long breath. "How are you and Billy doing?"

"Okay. We haven't figured out a connection yet, but I'm sure we'll get there." She paused. "There is one thing about this message, Lee…."

"What's that?"

"He's pretty specific about you going alone."

"Well," Lee chuckled. "I guess it only takes one of us to answer a phone."

"I don't like it," Amanda said. "You shouldn't be going by yourself."

"I won't. I'll handle it." His tone said to her that she wouldn't be going with him, and she let out a frustrated breath. "I'll park a team nearby, I promise."

"You'd better, Stetson. We're planning a vacation, and you know what that means - that's just like announcing your retirement in this business, and then waiting for someone to finish you off."

Lee laughed, even though it was an unusually dark thing for Amanda to say. 

"I'll be careful," he said. "I like the idea of you and me in Paris too much not to be."

Billy leaned back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes. The Q Bureau looked as if a tornado had blown through - files were strewn over every surface, grouped in a kind of organized chaos that made him feel as if he and Amanda were treading water. Lee had come up for a couple of hours after lunch and helped them sort through some of them, and Amanda had run a search on the computer for keywords they had thought were significant. But it was five o'clock and they hadn't come up with anything yet.

Amanda sighed, leaning back in her chair and looking around the office, thinking. Billy was engrossed in the list in front of him, scanning keywords. He was so intent on what he was doing that Amanda's sudden movement startled him.

"Wait a minute," Amanda said, flipping through a stack of files in a hurry. "You know where the Senator fits in? He isn't as much of a red herring as we'd thought…."

"What do you mean?" Billy asked, rubbing a hand over his face.

"ACM. Remember ACM? He was a backer. I'm sure of it. I'm sure I've seen it somewhere…." She flipped through a file, scanning the page. "A-ha!"

"So?"

"So I think I know who the mystery messenger is," she said, turning to her computer. "Where's that address?"

"Right…here…" Billy handed her a Post-it Note from a pad near his elbow, and watched as Amanda typed the words _You won this from Jamie in a craps game._

"What the hell does that mean?" Billy wondered, one eyebrow raised.

"You'll see in a few minutes. If I'm right."

Five minutes later, Amanda's mail notification beeped. Billy watched her eyes widen as a message appeared and they read two words:

__

His bike.


	3. Modem Operandi

****

Modem Operandi - Part 3

By Fiona Robinson

__

(see part 1 for disclaimer) 

"How long do you think Alexi Kalnikov has been involved in this?" Billy wondered as they stood waiting for the elevator. They had decided to pull the files the Agency had on Alexi. Amanda wanted to know what he'd been up to for the past fifteen years.

Amanda shrugged, settling her bag on her shoulder. "Who knows? We haven't seen him since he was a kid…Do you think there's still a record on him downstairs?"

"Probably. Most likely." Billy shook his head, sighing. "Let's go check it out."

"You know, this whole thing is weird," she said, as they rode down five levels. Her ears popped, as they always did, and she swallowed a couple of times before she continued. "This whole…web thing. Cyber terrorism."

"What's weird about it? Give someone a new medium and they'll figure out a way to exploit it for criminal purposes. That's just the way it works."

"Yeah, I guess. I don't know…I guess I can always hope humanity is above some of that."

"Amanda, if it were above some of that you'd be out of a job."

She laughed as the doors slid open. Billy was right.

"Maybe the Agency should put up a web site," Billy said. "At least then we'd get hits that didn't involve body bags."

In the file room, Billy waited while Amanda dug out what the Agency had on Alexi. Files older than ten years were still on paper, but Amanda had a feeling that over half of the surveillance the Agency had done on Alexi was on the system somewhere. Still, she dropped two hefty manila folders on the table in front of Billy, and the two of them began to read.

Billy immediately flipped to the back of the second folder. "It only goes up to 1990."

"I figured as much," Amanda said, digging out a pen. "I'll sign them out and we can take them upstairs. Then we can at least take a look at what we have on him on the computer."

In Lee's office, Amanda booted up his computer and settled behind what had once been Billy's desk. Billy chuckled a little at the sight, and felt a little pang as he always did when he stood in this office now.

"Okay," she said, typing in her passwords, her user names, and her security clearance. "Here we go…." Billy watched her watch the computer screen, intent on the little hourglass that meant it was searching. "Bingo," she said, after a moment, then sat back in her chair. "Oh, Alexi," she muttered, prompting Billy to scoot around the desk and read over her shoulder.

"Impressive," Billy said, leaning forward. "He's been busy. B and E's…he's been arrested for hacking before…. And he's been cleaning people out over the net. Nice boy we have here."

Amanda shook her head. "I hoped he'd get away from all that." But at the same time, she wondered how her few days with him at the age of twelve could ever have made a difference. Alexi had been set on a path long before he'd met her, and she hadn't been in his life long enough to steer him in any clear direction.

Billy knew what she was thinking. He sat on the edge of Lee's desk. "You can't help everyone, Amanda."

"I know. I just…He had so much potential." She sighed. "It's frustrating." She sat back in Lee's chair, staring at the computer screen. "I wonder if there's any way he can turn his life around."

"He has to want to do that before it'll happen," Billy reminded her. He looked around the room, stroking his chin. "Come on, let's get out of here. Maybe we can figure out what he's up to, without having to worry about someone looking over our shoulder."

Amanda sat in her living room, fiddling with a pen, her sweater, her wedding rings. She hated waiting for Lee to come home - it had been years since she'd had to, and she suddenly had a taste of what things must be like for him when she walked out the door to meet an informant. 

It seemed strange to her that this informant could have been someone they'd known as a child. Amanda had felt a little comfort from that, but Lee had dismissed it - "We don't know why he's trying to contact us," he'd said. "It could be a trap." And Amanda had seen what he meant, and what Billy had told her earlier - that one week out of a child's life wasn't going to change his everything, that they still had to be careful. 

Lee had only stayed in Section 25 for three years before Billy and Amanda coaxed him back to the field. Amanda had never thought she'd feel that way - she had never once thought she'd want Lee or herself in the line of duty for very long. But she had seen how unhappy he'd been, how bureaucratic and bogged down his section and projects had become, and she wanted to work with him again. 

And Billy had wanted to groom him.

Amanda had never told Lee about the meeting she'd had with Billy, just before Lee had left Section 25, when Billy had told her he was thinking about retiring in a few years and wanted Lee to take his position as Section Chief. It wasn't that he could decide who would take his job - and when Dr. Smyth had been around Lee wouldn't even have been a candidate - but he did know that with Scarecrow back in the field he could begin swaying the higher-ups.

"I want to make sure you're all right with it," Billy said. "That you're not making any other plans…before I suggest it to him."

Amanda shook her head. "What other plans would we make?"

"Well…for a family, I suppose."

"Oh." Amanda had drawn in a deep breath. Billy was a close friend, but she knew Lee hadn't talked about this with him. "That doesn't seem to be an option."

Billy was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, Amanda. I shouldn't have brought it up."

But she shook her head. "Oh, no. No. Don't worry about it. There's nothing wrong. It just…doesn't seem to be happening." She shrugged.

Billy cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," he said again.

"It's okay. And I think you should approach Lee with your offer," she said. "He isn't happy where he is, and…and I'd like to work with him again."

So Billy had made his offer to Lee, and Lee had agonized over it for three months before finally accepting. Becoming Section Chief had never even crossed his mind until Billy had laid the opportunity before him. And Amanda knew, without a doubt, that Lee loved being back in the field, even though the first couple of assignments they took together could have ended their marriage if Billy hadn't reminded them how to work together again.

The sound of a key in the lock sent Amanda springing up from the couch, and when Lee came through the door he saw the tension in her expression and half-expected her to levitate.

"Well?" she said.

"He didn't show up. And I didn't think he would," Lee said, hanging up his coat. He turned and looked at her, carefully. "Were you worried?"

"I always worry," she said, crossing the room in two steps to kiss him firmly. "Always."

"Did you think I was going to get myself killed?"

"You bought those plane tickets," she said, kissing him again, "so I wouldn't put it past you."

"If I remember correctly, you were the reason we couldn't go last time," he said, sliding his arms around her waist. "Something about faulty eardrums…."

"Pardon me?" she asked, sinking her fingers into his hair. "I don't seem to be able to hear you." Amanda nibbled at his earlobe, then drew away to smile at him. "Billy only left about an hour ago."

Lee laughed. "They're going to call in his pension if he isn't careful," he said, reluctantly drawing away from her. He looked at the paperwork, scattered all over the coffee table. "You haven't just been worrying," he said, picking up a folder. "What did you and Billy find out?"

"Billy has a few theories…they're all pretty tentative right now, though. Do you really think Sheila's involved?"

"I don't know. I don't want to, but after talking about it with Anne yesterday I don't see how she couldn't be."

"Wait a minute," Amanda shook her head. "How do you know you can trust _Anne_ and not Sheila?"

Lee sighed. He'd been struggling with that all afternoon. "I don't. I don't know I can trust anyone except Francine and Billy and…" he grinned, "maybe you."

She laughed and swatted him. "Wouldn't count on it, pal." She turned serious again, studying him closely. "You're taking a huge leap of faith here, aren't you?"

Lee nodded. "I have nothing else to go on. Anne's giving me information, and I feel like I have to check it out."

"And Sheila probably isn't doing it alone, is she?"

Lee shook his head, slowly sitting down on the couch. "Damn," he muttered.

"This is a tough one, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Amanda, if we don't crack this case…whoever it is could bring the Agency to its knees."

Lee and Amanda both awoke at the same time, their hearts beating wildly. "Did you hear that?" she whispered, sitting up in bed.

"Yeah…was that the back window?"

"I think so." She looked at him, smiling a little. "It's the one we fixed last week," she said, wryly.

Lee rolled his eyes, kicking his legs free of the blankets, and reached for his pistol, concealed in the bedside drawer. Amanda cast him a disapproving look.

"Is that really necessary?" she asked, gesturing to the weapon.

"Well, whoever it is is going to get to the frying pan before we are," he shot back, and she nodded reluctantly, reaching for her own gun.

They crept down the stairs together, Amanda in back. She stood behind Lee and thought how funny it was that the tag was sticking out of the tee-shirt he'd been sleeping in. And then she thought that the tag was the least of her worries - whoever was in their kitchen could have a gun, too.

Lee pushed the kitchen door open, his gun ready, and Amanda flicked on the light. Their intruder, a lanky man in dirty denim, squinted his eyes shut and held up his hands.

"Don't shoot!" he pleaded, standing in the middle of the room.

"Alexi?" Amanda asked, relaxing. Lee didn't move. 

"Alexi?" Lee repeated, slightly confused. He watched his wife step toward the intruder. "Amanda, be careful, he –"

"It's all right, Lee…It is you, isn't it?"

Alexi nodded, relaxing a little. "I don't have a gun. You can put yours away."

Lee slowly lowered his gun, still a little confused.

"How did you find us?" he demanded. "We haven't seen you since you were a kid."

"I was actually looking for Mrs. King," Alexi said, sitting stiffly on a barstool at the breakfast nook. "I mean…Mrs. Stetson, I guess."

"Amanda," she said.

"Amanda." Alexi hesitated. "If you're Scarecrow," he said to Lee, "you're in big trouble. And if you're Mrs. Scarecrow, then you're in trouble, too."

Lee eyed Alexi suspiciously. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the security breaches at the Agency. And I'm talking about the messages you've been getting. I've been trying to warn you, but…"

Lee held up a hand. "Whoa! Back up the bus a little, here. What do you mean we're in trouble?"

"Exactly what I said. These guys know you're on to them, and they're going to be ready to stop you," Alexi told him.

Lee frowned. On to who? "We're not "on to" anyone," he said.

Alexi crossed his arms over his chest. "That's not what they think, let me tell you. They think you're hot on their trail."

"Who are they?" Lee demanded.

"I don't know their names."

Lee looked at Amanda. "Of course you don't. What makes you think we're going to believe anything you tell us?"

"Because I know why the breaches are happening. I know why Agency files are being accessed at random. I can't tell you who's behind it, but I can tell you what they're planning to do."

Lee drew a barstool toward himself and sat down, his pistol still in a firm grip in his left hand. "All right," he said to Alexi, leveling the other man with a look that meant business. "Talk."

Amanda placed a steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of Alexi, and he stopped devouring the chicken sandwich she'd given him two minutes earlier to nod his thanks. Lee, leaning against the counter, suddenly thought that she was the only agent he'd ever known who could flip an internal switch and mother an intruder in their home, the pistol in her pocket dragging the sweater of his she was wearing to one side on her slim frame.

So Alexi thought it was an inside job. No, Alexi knew it was an inside job. He'd said as much. Lee chewed on this thought for a minute, and was disturbed by his complete lack of surprise. 

Alexi swore up and down that he didn't know why he'd been forced to hack into the system. "It wasn't even a real security breach, in the sense that I cracked the code," he'd told Lee. "They gave me the code, every single time it changed."

"Who did?"

"That's just it, I wouldn't know them if they were sitting across from me right now. I don't know who they were. I do remember that the woman smelled like…flowers. Lilies or something."

"A woman wearing perfume. That narrows it down." Lee let out a long breath. "Why did they pick you?"

"They found my record at the Agency - they told me that - that they'd seen my Agency record and knew I'd been involved in some computer crime. The man, whoever he is, came to my door last week. Said he was a probation officer and he was checking up on me. I let him in, he hit me with something, and I woke up in that house."

"What about the files you accessed - why did you go after files on Senator Birdsell? Did they ask you to?"

"No." Alexi had shaken his head, adamantly this time. "I did that myself. They wanted to keep you guys scrambling - I know that. I thought putting a pattern to them might make you guys clue in to the fact that it was all a distraction."

"And we did," Amanda had interjected, resting her elbows on the island.

"You mean you did," Lee had said, considering what Alexi had just told him. It didn't amount to much. They still didn't know who was behind everything. "Why did you send me two messages to meet if you knew you couldn't be there to meet me?"

"The first time was their idea. They wanted to scare you with the phone call. The second time…earlier tonight…." Alexi sighed. "I thought I'd be out by then. I took a chance."

Now, Lee wondered for what felt like the fiftieth time in five minutes if Alexi was lying to them, if his coming to their house was all a trap, a way of extracting information from them. He didn't want to believe it was - he wanted to believe that Alexi had been looking for Amanda because he thought she could help him - but the part of him that had been burned before refused to entertain that thought for long.

"Amanda," he said, after a moment, "can I talk to you out here for a second?" He gestured to the living room, and Amanda shrugged, following him.

"What?"

"We can't have him staying here," Lee said, his voice low, and Amanda raised her eyebrows in surprise. "This isn't a safe house."

"It's as good as a safe house," she said. "Lee Stetson, I can't believe you want to throw him to the wolves." 

"He isn't twelve years old anymore, Amanda. He's an adult, and he could bring us a lot of trouble."

"I think he can help us catch them," she said. "And I think we're going to be in trouble anyway."

"I seem to recall he got us tied up in a closet and nearly killed the last time we tried to help him," Lee whispered.

"We didn't get killed, and we ended up catching those guys," she retorted, her hands on her hips. "And he's staying for the rest of the night - at least until we can find him a safe house."

A noise in the doorway made both of them turn, and Alexi was leaning against the frame, a hand to his ribs. "I wouldn't let me stay either, Lee. I get what you're saying, and it's okay."

Lee rolled his eyes heavenward. "You can stay, Alexi. It's fine." He looked at the young man more closely. "You look pretty banged up. How did that happen?"

Alexi shrugged. "They worked me over pretty good, I guess. Kept me in line."

Lee caught the shock on Amanda's face before she managed to hide it. "Let me run you a hot bath," she said, moving toward the stairs. "And Lee, can you find him some of Philip's clothes to wear? I think there are some in the guest room."

Lee nodded and headed upstairs. "I'll make up the bed in there, while I'm at it," he muttered. 

When he finally crawled into bed beside Amanda, the clock read four a.m.. She turned to face him in the darkness, her hair a dark pool on her pillow. "Did he tell you anything?"

"No, not really," Lee answered. "I bet he'll tell you, though."

"You think so?"

"He came looking for you, didn't he? Not for me. He thought you'd help him out."

"Yeah." Amanda sighed. "I haven't seen him for fifteen years. I wonder why he thought that."

Lee stared at the ceiling for a minute. "Well, whoever he's running from knows he's connected to you…to us. He tried to warn us, and there has to be a reason for that."

"He sent you the email," she said, her voice full of sleep. 

"He said he only did that because he thought I'd know where you were. When he found out where you were, he stopped sending them to me."

Amanda sighed. "I still don't get it."

Lee smiled a little, in the dark. "What's to get? The Amanda King tattoo doesn't wash off so easily, I guess. Just another in a long line of people who completely trust you."

"I may not have told you this before, but that's a lot of pressure to put on a person. Trusting them completely." She was nearly asleep, and Lee shifted closer to her in the bed, sliding his arms around her and burying his nose in her hair.

"You can handle it."

****

Amanda clipped a visitor's pass to Alexi's jacket and led him past two guards, through a door and toward an elevator. She had taken him through the "back way" of the Agency, knowing that to parade him through the main entrance could be potentially dangerous. A small part of her recognized that having Alexi anywhere in the building was probably a mistake, and yet at the same time she didn't see any other option. 

"Huh," he said, looking around, his dark eyes resting on the security camera in the corner. "This is interesting."

Amanda smiled a little, shrugging. "You don't remember this from last time?"

"No. You'd think I would, wouldn't you?" He studied Amanda, carefully. "Do you like working here? Being a Fed?"

She nodded.

"You weren't a Fed when I stayed with you, though."

"No," she answered, slowly. "I was still a civilian back then."

"So how come you joined up?"

Amanda shrugged. "It seemed like the right thing to do," she said. She'd asked herself that question a million times over the years, especially when the Agency interfered with her personal life. She'd asked that question on her honeymoon in California, when she was recovering from a gunshot wound, and years later when she and Lee had decided to stop trying to have kids. The best she'd ever come up with was that she was making the world better for Philip and Jamie, that she was good at what she did and that every once in a while there was one less "bad guy" for the world to worry about.

"And besides," she said after a minute, "I seem to be good at it."

The doors opened and she and Alexi stepped out of the elevator and into the bullpen, which was, as always, buzzing with activity. 

"This," Alexi said, surveying the scene, "I remember."

Amanda led him through the maze of desks and cubicles, past ringing phones and printing printers, to Lee's office.

Lee and Billy were waiting for them, a plate of muffins sitting to one side on Lee's desk, two crumpled napkins and coffee cups beside it. Billy nodded at Alexi, and Alexi nodded back, trying to remember the man. For some reason, all he could think of were lollipops.

"Alexi, this is Billy Melrose," Lee said. "He was my boss the last time you met him."

"Uh…oh, yeah. Hi."

"Hello."

Amanda gestured for Alexi to sit down. She perched on the edge of Lee's desk, swinging one long, slender leg in a way that often drove her husband wild. "Anything new?" she asked, picking up a muffin.

"Nah. Pete's team is still working on it."

"I was thinking that Alexi and I could look for the house," Amanda said. "Unless there's something else that you think would help more."

Lee shook his head. "No, that's probably a good idea."

"All right."

"It's probably a good idea to get him out of here as soon as possible," Billy said, suddenly. "I mean, this isn't the best place to hang out if it's an inside job."

"No," Amanda agreed. "I knew that. But I also knew we couldn't avoid coming here. Even a safe house wouldn't really be safe, if we don't know who's involved."

"I'm in the room," Alexi said, suddenly. "You don't have to talk about me like I'm not here."

Amanda smiled a little. "Sorry. You're right. Do you think you'd know the house if you saw it?"

"I'm not sure. I'll try."

"That's all we ask," Lee said, suddenly, strangely charitable. He wasn't sure whether to be suspicious of this man or not. He saw Billy raise an eyebrow, and he knew that the former Section Chief was thinking that this was the ultimate test - Alexi recognizing and leading them to the house would clear him more than anything else so far. 

Alexi nodded. Amanda stood up from the desk, putting the muffin back down on the plate.

"All right," she said, turning into brisk Agent King before their very eyes. "We'll check in in an hour or so. See you later."

"What you're telling me is that he couldn't identify the house," Lee said as he and Amanda walked down the hall to the Q-Bureau. "He drew a blank on a place he says he escaped from thirty-six hours ago."

"I didn't say he drew a blank," Amanda said. "I said he was confused."

Lee stopped and looked at Amanda. "He doesn't recognize the area."

She looked uncomfortable for a moment. "No." As Lee started to walk again, she kept in step beside him. "But how do we even know that was the area?" She unlocked the door to the Q-Bureau and went inside, Lee close behind her.

"We have a good idea that he came from that direction, don't we? He described landmarks…shopping centers, all of that."

"You don't believe him, do you?" Amanda said, her hands on her hips. "You don't believe that he doesn't know where that house is."

Lee let out a long, frustrated breath. "Amanda, he says he escaped from that place. He'd have to have some idea."

"He didn't grow up in DC, Lee. He might not have any idea at all."

"He found our house." Lee raised his eyebrows, tossing the allegation at her as if it were a gauntlet. She stood firm, shaking her head.

"It wouldn't be that hard. A bus or two - he'd be a block away."

"He found _us_," Lee insisted. "It isn't like we advertise our address and phone number."

"He had access to Agency files. All he'd have to do is look up my personnel record to know where I lived and that you're my husband. That's probably a piece of cake for him."

Lee was silent.

"Do you want me to look at the list of files he accessed? Do you want me to see if my file was in there?"

Lee nodded. "Yes."

"Will you believe him then?"

"Maybe."

Amanda shook her head in disbelief, turning to the stack of files on her desk. Lee waited while she leafed through them, her brows knitted, looking for the human resources directory. He saw a change in her posture; she sat up straight and bit on her lip, and he knew she'd found something.

"Well?" he prompted. "Is it there?"

"No," she said, quiet.

"I knew it."

"Yours is."

Lee dropped his keys in the bowl by the back door and set his briefcase on a kitchen chair, letting out a long sigh. Some Saturday. He and Amanda had spent the entire day at work, trying to fill in the holes in Alexi's story.

"Amanda?" he called out. "Are you here?"

The kitchen door swung open and he was faced with Alexi. "She went for groceries," he said. "And since I'm not twelve anymore, she let me stay behind."

Lee shrugged, absorbing Alexi's sarcasm. He didn't have the energy to be disturbed or defensive about the other man's attitude. "She say when she'd be back?"

"No. But I'm pretty sure she'll be back soon. She's been gone for an hour."

Lee nodded, glancing around the kitchen, shrugging off his jacket. "Want a drink?" he asked, opening the refrigerator.

Alexi nodded as Lee waved a bottle of beer in his direction. "Sure. Thanks."

The two stood in silence for a minute, sipping their beer. Lee set his glass down on the countertop, running his fingers along the wood grain of the butcher block. "Amanda tells me you didn't find the house today."

"No." Lee looked up at Alexi, who was busy studying his running shoes. Alexi shrugged. "I guess I don't really know the city as well as I thought I did."

"Are you sure that was the problem?"

"Of course that was the problem."

"Why did you look up my personnel record?" Lee waned to know, leveling Alexi with a cool green gaze.

"You and Amanda were the only people I remembered from…the last time. I thought you could help me."

"You thought I could help you."

Alexi's eyebrows shot up in disbelief as he sensed that Lee didn't believe a word he said. "Yes. Why else would I try to find you?"

"Look, Alexi, this isn't a nice business. I've made a lot of enemies over the years, and I wouldn't put it past any of them to use you as some kind of bait. Amanda trusts you because she's that type of person. I'm reserving judgment."

The sound of the back door opening and Amanda entering the room stopped Alexi from making a reply. Lee turned to his wife and took a bag from her arms.

"Hey," he said, kissing her cheek.

"Hi. Hi, Alexi." Amanda put a bag down on the counter and looked at the two men. She immediately sensed that she'd interrupted something, and it wasn't good. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Nothing," Alexi said, shrugging his shoulders and turning to leave the room.

Amanda looked at her husband. "Lee?"

Lee hesitated, setting his beer on the counter. "I was asking him a few questions, is all."

"No Class C, huh? You just cut right to the chase and accused him of lying, didn't you?"

"Amanda, I'm - " Lee let out a long breath, turning to face his wife. "I'm reserving judgment, and I told him that."

"You aren't _reserving_ anything, Lee. You've made your judgment already." Amanda took a deep breath, glancing at the kitchen door, and moved for the back door, drawing Lee outside on to the porch. "You believe Anne, don't you? That Sheila's behind it all."

"I don't know what to believe."

"Then why don't you try listening to Alexi?" she demanded. "Why are you so ready to believe someone you hardly know?"

"I hardly know Alexi, Amanda," Lee said, his voice suddenly hard. "All I know of him is that he gets us into trouble. All I know of him is what he was when he was twelve - hard to deal with."

"He was a scared kid, Lee. You, of all people, should understand that." Knowing she'd just hurt him, she took a deep breath and softened her expression. "I'm sorry," Amanda said, facing him in the dark. "I know you don't really trust him yet, but all I know is what my gut instincts tell me….He needs us to help him get out of this."

Lee sighed. "I see what you're saying." But Amanda could sense that he hadn't bought into her theory just yet.

"You know what it's like to be under suspicion. You haven't forgotten."

"I haven't forgotten. It made me use the telephone in a whole different way."

Amanda laughed without meaning or wanting to, reminding herself as she did that she was angry with him, that he was being what Jamie would call "an ass". That Alexi deserved better, even if he had made a few mistakes.

"You have to start trusting him a little," she said, her voice firm. "Now I want you to go back in there and listen to what he's going to tell you. We need him to share everything he knows."

Lee nodded, taking a deep breath, and opened the door to the house. He stood in the kitchen doorway, watching Alexi sit on the couch. Part of him felt perfectly justified in his suspicion of the younger man; another part of him struggled with the judgments he'd been making and knew that Amanda was right - he had to give Alexi a chance.

"Alexi, I…."

Alexi looked up from the newspaper he was reading, one eyebrow raised in cynical anticipation of what Lee was about to say.

"I'm…Look, I said I was reserving judgment, but I'm…" Lee let out another breath, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "We need your help to solve this case. I - I don't know the first thing about all this computer stuff, and you at least understand what they've been doing…."

"What Lee wants to know is whether you'd…mind…working with us on this," Amanda said from behind him, her brown eyes twinkling a little.

Alexi nodded. "Yeah. I can do that."

"Okay," Lee said. "Good."

"My laptop's by the front door if you want to set it up," Amanda suggested. "We can use the desk in the den."

Alexi put his newspaper on the coffee table and stood up, slowly. "Sure."

Lee watched Alexi leave the room, slightly perplexed. Amanda patted his shoulder. "Nice work, Scarecrow," she said, and disappeared in to the kitchen too quickly to see the pointed look Lee shot in her direction.

The three sat around the desk in the den, their dinner plates carefully balanced around Amanda's laptop computer, which sat in front of Alexi. Lee was trying to understand what Alexi was telling them, that he had started the sweeps himself to call attention to the fact that someone from outside was in the Agency system.

"What I don't get is what they were getting you to do in the system," he said.

"I didn't really understand it at first either," Alexi admitted. "But they had a gun to my head and I decided it wasn't the time for questions." He leaned back in his chair and peeled the label from his bottle of beer in tiny shreds. "What I'm beginning to understand - or think I understand - is that they needed me to cover up something."

"You were a scapegoat," Amanda put in.

Alexi nodded and took a swig of beer.

"But what are you covering up?" she wondered.

"You know about online banking," Alexi said, leaning forward in his chair. "How you can set up a bank account, credit, everything, through the Internet." Amanda nodded. "Well, it's just as easy to set up a bank. It's been done before. All you really need is the server, a home page, and a place to put your deposits. Generally, a Swiss bank account."

"And people seriously do their banking this way?" Lee asked in astonishment. "Without seeing a face, going into a building?"

Alexi nodded. "After the Savings and Loan stuff, does it really make a difference if they can see the place? Your money's probably safer in a tree stump in your front yard….Regardless, people do their banking this way; the last time someone set up a scam like this they got away with twelve million dollars. Racked it all up, then turned off their computer, shut down the server, and disappeared."

Twelve million. From unsuspecting people, typing in their checking account information and sending off their money to a bank that said it met all the banking regulations of a small country that really had no regulations at all. People had done it once, and according to Alexi, people were doing it again.

"What does this have to do with the Agency?" Lee asked.

"Who do you think set up the bank in the first place?"


	4. Modem Operandi

****

Modem Operandi - Part 4

By Fiona Robinson

__

(see part 1 for disclaimer) 

"So if these…crooked…agents are setting up a dummy bank, just who are they stealing from?" Amanda asked an hour later, as she, Alexi and Lee gazed at her computer screen. The "bank's" website glowed on the screen before them.

Alexi shrugged. "Whoever decides to bank at the site."

"How would they find out about it?"

Alexi turned around to face them. "All you need are a couple of brochures, maybe a kiosk in a couple of upscale, snooty locations, to make people think it's real."

Lee let out a long breath. He felt sick.

"So when you set up those sweeps…they'd already given you the codes to get into our system."

"Uh…no." Alexi looked sheepish, suddenly. "They wanted me to run the first one. Actually, they wanted me to delete some files, but I told them it'd give them away in a second, so I accessed files at random. After that, I hacked to get your attention. You guys really need to do something about your security that way."

Lee and Amanda exchanged glances. She wanted to laugh, but didn't.

"Why didn't you tell me this in the first place?" Lee demanded. 

"I didn't think you'd believe me. My track record isn't the greatest."

"Your _record_ isn't the greatest," Lee said.

Amanda shot him a warning look. "What now?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

Lee shook his head. "I have no clue where to begin…so I'm going to bring in Sheila for questioning."

Lee left Sheila Marler and made his way down the hall to the room where Amanda and Alexi had watched him question her. Sheila had never wavered in her insistence that she was innocent, and that made him wonder. Lee knew she wasn't that good an actress - he could tell from the look in her eyes that she was truly confused about what he was asking her. Anne Hendrickson had been wrong.

Amanda and Alexi turned as he opened the door.

"Do you recognize her?" Lee asked.

Alexi shook his head.

"Her voice - mannerisms - anything?"

"Nothing. I don't think she was there."

Lee nodded. "Well, it's about time we agreed on something," he said. "I don't think she was, either."

"So…what now?" Alexi wanted to know.

"Now, you're going to show me where this money is coming from." He glanced at his watch. "And then we're going home for a nice, hot Sunday dinner with the folks."

Francine caught up with the group on their way up to the Q Bureau, a sheaf of papers in her hand. Lee and Amanda were both surprised to see her - before they had a chance to think about it, she began to speak.

"Thank God I caught up with you two," she said, then saw Alexi and stopped. "Who's this?"

"Our mystery messenger," Lee said. "Francine, meet our security breach in person. This is Alexi Kalnikov."

Her eyes narrowed at the person who had turned her section - and the entire Agency - upside down. "Maybe you know something about this," she said, waving the papers in her hand. Alexi watched her with curiosity.

"What are those?" Amanda asked.

"The auditor paid me a visit this morning," Francine said. "There's something wrong with the accounts in Pete Williams' area, which of course is part of my section."

"What's up?" Lee asked.

"They're paying a ridiculous amount of money for inventory that doesn't exist."

Lee raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. In fact, Sheila Marler's the one who brought it to the auditor's attention, yesterday afternoon. A/P has paid one vendor for inventory we received but that never saw the light of day."

"I don't get it - why didn't Sheila tell someone earlier than this?"

"She only had someone do inventory late last week. And she's been on vacation for most of this month."

Lee shook his head. "She didn't mention any of that this morning," he said.

"You didn't ask her about her vacation," Amanda said, and Lee cast a reproving look in her direction.

"Amanda, could you go downstairs and talk to Sheila again?" he asked. "Alexi, I want you to show us those files."

Lee and Alexi were sitting behind Amanda's desk, staring at her computer, when Amanda came into the office, a pad of paper in her hand.

"Hi," Lee said as his wife came toward them. "What did Sheila tell you?"

"Well…" Amanda flipped through the pad of paper, looking at her notes. "She said she didn't bring up the variances earlier because she didn't know about them. She's been in California for the last couple of weeks - her mother's sick and she's really worried about her, and…" She caught Lee's eye. "Well, anyway. She didn't know about the variance until Accounts Payable sent the invoices back up to her the other day. You see, the original purchase order - which Sheila didn't cut - quoted a price that was different than what whoever received the inventory received it as. If the variance is more than three percent A/P sends it back."

"But what was it? I mean, what did they receive?" Lee wondered.

"That's just it. She couldn't tell. The invoice was never itemized, the purchase order just says "hardware". The packing slip - and I quote - conveniently drowned in a cup of coffee, and no one will own up to it. The only thing she knows is the name of the company, which is…" she started flipping through her notes, scanning the pages for the name.

"Amanda," Alexi said.

"Hold on, I wrote it down…Circ…"

"Amanda." Lee turned the computer monitor so she could see it, too. "We know who it is."

She looked up at the screen. "Circuitech," she said, nodding once. "That's exactly who it is." 

"Circuitech," Lee repeated. "Makes more deposits to that bogus bank than anyone else."

Amanda's eyes widened, and she pulled up a chair, the notepad in her lap, staring at the computer screen. The three were silent. 

"They're skimming off the top," Amanda said, suddenly, sitting up straight in her chair. Lee looked across the Q Bureau at her, one eyebrow raised. He knew the look on her face well. He could practically see the one hundred watt bulb go off inside her head.

"You mean embezzling?" Alexi asked.

"They're filtering Agency funds through that bank. They aren't just stealing from all those people that deposited money, they're stealing from the Agency, too."

Lee's forehead wrinkled. "Who would be stupid enough to do that?"

"It's a government agency, Lee. Money goes all over the place, to all kinds of things. Sheila's in charge of coding purchases for her department, but when she was away someone had to take her place - how hard would it be to buy a few more circuit boards or whatever they need? None of us are going to question it. Pete's her superior, he signs all the purchase orders…."

Lee nodded. "I'm pretty much at Pete's mercy as far as this investigation goes, but that's not an issue because it isn't about the sweeps anymore. It's just plain old-fashioned stealing, isn't it?"

Alexi nodded. "Internet style."

Sunday dinner that week was admittedly one of the strangest in Amanda's recent memory. Alexi sat at the table, between Jamie and Lee, across from Dotty and Gordon, and Amanda tried to keep the peace.

Jamie remembered Alexi, vaguely, as one of several strange, inexplicable episodes from his childhood. He regarded Alexi with curiosity, wondering how his mother and Lee had, once again, managed to take in someone they'd otherwise have no contact with.

"When's your next trip out of town, Jamie?" Lee asked, passing asparagus to his mother-in-law.

"Thursday," Jamie said. "Vegas."

Alexi whistled. "What're you going there for?"

"I'm a photographer. I'm going for a shoot."

Alexi regarded Jamie carefully, one eyebrow raised. "Huh," he said. "You were kind of a geeky kid. I never thought you'd turn out to be a half-interesting guy."

"I was eight," Jamie protested. 

"You any better at craps?" Alexi asked, spooning potatoes onto his plate.

"Much," Jamie said, counting the spoons full of mashed potatoes as they hit Alexi's plate. The part of his psyche that worked out three times a week observed the hefty chunk of butter Alexi dropped on top of the pile, and figured that if he ate like that every week, the other man wouldn't live to see old age.

"Well, maybe later I can win your car off you," Alexi said, tearing a bread roll in half. Jamie cast a glance at Lee, and Lee shrugged, gesturing to Amanda.

"What happened to the Porsche?" Alexi asked Lee suddenly.

"It was written off in an…accident."

"Betcha picked up a lot of women with that thing."

Lee started to chuckle, looking across the table at Amanda. "I, uh, didn't have much use for it in that sense," he said, and she smiled back at him. Jamie rolled his eyes. Gordon chuckled.

"You'll never guess who we ran into today," Dotty said suddenly, and Amanda raised her eyebrows. "Captain Curt."

"Really?" Amanda asked, pretending not to be aware that Gordon was rolling his eyes at the mention of Dotty's former suitor. "Does he still fly?"

"Once in a while." Dotty shook her head, taking a sip of her wine. "He was with a pretty young thing who was closer to Jamie's age than yours, Amanda. You wouldn't have believed it. It was pathetic."

"I still say more power to him," Gordon said, and it was clear that he and Dotty had discussed the incident several times over. "If someone that young is interested in an old fart like him…."

Dotty turned to her partner, her expression indicating she was about to challenge him. "What are you saying, Gordon? If someone that young was interested in you…."

But Gordon held up a hand. "That isn't even an issue, sweetheart. First of all, I'm lucky you're interested in me, and secondly, I haven't been interested in another woman since the day I met you."

Dotty cornered Amanda in the kitchen, as she was loading the dishwasher. "Where did that boy come from?" she asked, running water to fill the sink.

"He looked us up."

"He saw you for a week, fifteen years ago, and he just happened to look you up? How did he find you?"

"He's good with computers," Amanda answered, trying to fit the last glass into the top rack of the dishwasher.

Dotty's eyes widened a little at Amanda's response, and she pulled on a pair of rubber gloves with a snap. "Amanda, darling, I know you still think you can help these people, but that boy is trouble."

"Oh, Mother," Amanda tried to keep exasperation from her voice, "he isn't. He's been having a tough time, is all."

Dotty shook her head. "I'm as compassionate as the next person, sweetheart, but I think he's taking advantage of you."

"He isn't."

"Where are his parents in all of this?"

Now there was a question. Amanda had asked Alexi that very thing, several times that week, and he'd been unable to give her a straight answer. She had a feeling he hadn't seen his parents in quite some time. Not that they'd be hard to find. The mixup with ACM all those years ago, and the Agency files on Alexi, should have pinpointed their location right away. Bur for some reason, they hadn't.

"He doesn't know where they are. He hasn't seen them in a few years."

"Hm."

Amanda raised her eyebrows and shut the dishwasher door. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Dotty raised a hand, as if to close the subject, and Amanda watched suds run down her mother's arm. "Let's just say I'm not altogether surprised."

"Oh, Mother," Amanda said, mopping water from Dotty's elbow. "Not everyone has a mother that's as nice as you are, or sons that are as good as mine."

Dotty didn't answer, but her expression softened a little at Amanda's words. "All I'm saying is keep your eyes on your silver. All right?"

"I will. I promise."

"And make sure he doesn't bring any other people in with him."

"I know. I will."

"And don't let Lee lose the house in a game of craps."

Now Amanda laughed, switching on her dishwasher and turning to make a pot of coffee. "Oh, Mother. Lee likes roulette."

Amanda woke on Monday morning to the sound of Lee running the shower. She peered at the clock through eyes still foggy with sleep and groaned inwardly when she realized her alarm had gone off twenty minutes ago. Seven a.m., and she had once been such a morning person. 

The water stopped running, and Amanda could hear Lee humming softly as he dried himself off. She rolled onto her back as he came out of the bathroom, smiling at him drowsily.

"Hey," he said, tying the belt on his robe. "Decided to stop hitting the snooze button?"

Amanda rolled her eyes, moving her legs as he sat down on her side of the bed. "I did not touch the snooze button."

"You did. Three times, if anyone's keeping track."

"You can't hear that in the shower."

"I can so. That thing is like a jackhammer and you still sleep through it. What happened to Amanda King, perky morning person?"

"She married you and turned into Amanda Stetson, person who never keeps regular hours." She grinned at him, reaching out to touch the beads of water still clinging to his beard. "I wouldn't be so tired if I could get to bed at a decent hour."

"Bed? You were in bed in plenty of time last night."

"Okay, let me rephrase that. If I could get to _sleep_ at a decent hour."

Lee grinned at her, leaning forward to kiss her, and Amanda tasted mint. "So you're blaming me?"

"I'm not blaming anyone. I never said I didn't enjoy the…activities…that kept me awake, I'm just telling you why I'm so sleepy this morning."

Lee laughed, kissing her neck, and Amanda squirmed as his beard tickled her. "I'd love to give you a repeat performance," he told her, "but I have a meeting at eight, and we don't seem to be newlyweds anymore so being late isn't an option."

"You act like a newlywed," she told him, sitting up in bed.

"So do you." They both turned their heads as they heard a door close, down the hall. "It'll be nice to have our house to ourselves again, once we solve this case."

Amanda nodded. "You just want to make out on the couch again."

Lee laughed, nibbling her ear. "That too," he admitted.

"You're impossible." She was silent for a moment, enjoying what he was doing, but her mind was on Alexi, down the hall. She sighed, and Lee stopped his feast on her neck to draw back and look at her.

"Am I losing my touch?"

"No. I was just thinking about…" She waved a hand in the direction of the guest room. "It's got to be hard for him."

"I suppose it is. But it'll work out. You know that."

"Will it? He's got a record - how's he supposed to get a good job, or live a normal life after all of this? He's been through a lot."

"Look, Amanda, we'll worry about that when we get to it, okay? When everyone is safe and he doesn't have to worry about someone trying to kill him. And then…maybe his parents can help out, who knows?" He stroked her face, smiling encouragement at her. "This must really be bothering you."

"It is."

"I figured. You usually lose your mind when I'm kissing you like that."

Amanda laughed now. "I do, don't I? Maybe you should try again."

Amanda arrived at the Q-Bureau after a meeting downstairs to find Lee and Francine sitting on the sofa, reading a file.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Anne came to see me again this morning," Lee said.

Amanda nodded. "I saw. What did she have to say?"

"She thinks Pete's involved."

"You mean as well as Sheila, or instead of Sheila?"

"As well as."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "Who's next - Francine?"

Lee chuckled. "I know. It's getting out of hand. But she's down there in the middle of everything, and we're not."

Amanda nodded, hesitating a little before speaking again. "I ran a background check on her."

Francine's eyebrows shot up. "You did? Why?"

"I don't know anything about her, and I wanted to see if it kicked anything out."

"It shouldn't have, Amanda. We do routine security checks down there, just like every other section."

Amanda let out a long breath. "I'm not saying you don't, Francine. I just wanted to see if there was anything in her background that could shed some light on the investigation." She handed a file folder to Lee. "She isn't as new to the Agency as she led you to believe."

"She's only been in my section for six months," Francine said, sipping her coffee.

"I know. And before that she worked in Accounts Payable, right?"

"Only for a couple of weeks, I think," Francine said. "At least, that's what the file I saw said."

"She worked in a branch office in London before that," Amanda said, sitting on the edge of her desk. "She's always worked in administration - Field Support - though she was trained as a field agent."

"Why isn't she active anymore?" Lee wondered.

"She was in a car accident a few years ago, and her husband was killed. David Whittaker."

"Was he an agent, too?"

Amanda shook her head. "He was the CFO for a booming IT company. But there were rumors when he died that he was about to be charged with embezzlement."

"Where did you find all this out?" Francine asked, her expression incredulous. "I mean, we review everyone's files pretty carefully. Why didn't any of this show up before?"

"I just did a little digging. I thought there was something funny about her starting here without going through any training, so I ran a more detailed search. And let's face it, we all count on those guys doing background checks to flag anything unusual. There isn't much here that's odd - it's just different from what she's been telling us."

"Mm-hm." Lee nodded. "Selective storytelling."

"I wonder what she's trying to cover up," Francine said, thoughful.

"Most likely, Circuitech. But we can't prove any of it," Amanda said. 

"Yet," Lee said. "Amanda, I want you to cozy up to Anne a little - see if you can follow her around. I want to see what she does with her day."

"You want me to follow her around the Agency?"

Lee chuckled. "Tail her in a room full of spies….Yeah."

She laughed. "Okay."

"What about Alexi?" Francine asked. "Can he identify her?"

Lee let out a long breath. "Maybe. But we can't rely on that. He says he never really got a good look at the woman, and his description of the man isn't the greatest."

At noon, Anne Hendrickson handed in her pass and left the Agency. Amanda was close on her heels, tossing the pass on Mrs Marsden's desk in what the older woman thought was a strangely absent-minded way and hurrying out the door. She had arranged to borrow a car from the Agency lot that morning, and she started up the rusty hatchback with a grimace, tossing a blackened banana peel into the back seat and wishing that they'd had something cleaner available.

She followed Anne to a trendy diner on the other side of town - and watched from across the street as the other woman waited at a patio table for ten minutes, until her companion showed up with a rose and a kiss. And at that moment, Amanda did a double-take.

Anne's companion was Pete Williams.

Amanda fished her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Lee's number.

"She's having lunch with Pete," she told her husband, "and I don't think they're talking about new software."

"What do you mean?" Lee asked, trying to peel the plastic wrap from a days-old deli sandwich.

Amanda smiled to herself. "Remember how we used to meet for lunch?"

"You mean last week, or when we were sneaking around?" Lee chuckled.

"He brought a rose. You never brought me a rose at lunch." Amanda cast a glance at her subjects, watched Anne sip from a glass of wine. "And they're having wine."

"Jealous?"

"When our suspects can squeeze in a date in the middle of running a money laundering operation, kidnapping a computer genius and cracking a top-secret organization's system - and we can't find time for a simple dinner - yes."

Lee laughed. "Don't get too caught up in the romance. They'll never get to Paris."

Amanda sighed. "No. But will we?"

Back at the Agency, Amanda left Anne in her office and decided to track down Alexi and Billy. She had asked Mrs. Marsden to buzz her if Anne left the building again - running downstairs from the Q-Bureau was a million times faster than trying to sneak up the elevator. And she knew Anne wouldn't use the blind entrance.

"I need to give her a check for some Tupperware," Amanda said, trying to allay any suspicion. "I missed her before - and I've been missing her for three days. I'll never get my salad spinner at the rate I'm going, and we're leaving for vacation on Thursday and then it's practically Thanksgiving by the time we get back, and I'm going to need it then. So if you could buzz me I'd really appreciate it."

Knowing the benign smile on Mrs. Marsden's face meant a call would come when Anne appeared in the lobby, Amanda went back up to the Q-Bureau to tell Alexi that he was coming with her the next time she left. "I want you to get a good look at Anne," she told him, even as the phone rang. Moments later, she put down the receiver and picked up her purse. "Lucky you. Now's your chance."

Anne and Pete were together again, and Alexi and Amanda followed them in the rusty loaner, parking at the far end of a grocery store parking lot.

"This is exciting," Alexi said dryly when Anne and Pete headed into the supermarket. "What's up - did she forget to pick up some eggs?"

Amanda shot him a reproving look and unbuckled her seatbelt. "No one ever said spy work was glamorous," she muttered, getting out of the car.

The two followed Anne and Pete through the deli and past the dairy section.

"Do you recognize them?" Amanda asked as she pretended to be choosing bananas.

Alexi shook his head, putting tomatoes in a bag. "No. And I know for sure the guy wasn't at the house. The guy I saw was much bigger. Heavier. And meaner."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Amanda looked up just as Anne began to turn back. "Uh oh," she said softly, catching Alexi's sleeve. "They're coming this way." She quickly drew Alexi down an aisle, out of Anne's line of sight. Unfortunately, she chose an aisle full of shopping carts and stock boys, unloading the latest shipments of film and tin foil. They were blocked in.

"Nice," Alexi muttered. "What if they see us?"

Amanda paused for a moment. "I guess it doesn't matter that much."

"If she was at the house she could kill me," Alexi said.

"She won't kill you in the middle of a grocery store. I won't let her."

"She could kill me in the parking lot."

Amanda raised an eyebrow. "I think you're overreacting."

"You think they're going to believe you're here as a coincidence?"

"Just look like you're shopping."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Look at the magazines," Amanda hissed, pushing Alexi toward the rack. She turned her back to Anne and Pete, rolling her eyes as Alexi picked up a copy of Playboy. "Not one of those," she whispered, shoving a copy of Good Housekeeping into his hands. Amanda turned toward the display of batteries beside her and began to pretend she was absorbed with a package of six double-A's.

She thought they were almost in the clear when Anne suddenly turned her head and saw Amanda. A bright, false smile appeared on her face, and she took Pete by the arm and guided him in Amanda's direction.

"Look who's here, Pete," Anne said. "It's Amanda."

Amanda smiled. "Oh, hello."

"I didn't know you shopped here," Pete said, juggling a loaf of bread and wedge of cheese.

"Oh, I don't usually," Amanda said. "I was just over on this side of town, picking up a friend, and I remembered that this place has that nice shaved ham that Lee likes."

Pete nodded, looking behind her and catching Alexi's eye. Amanda saw it and turned around to draw Alexi into the conversation.

"This is a friend of my son's," Amanda said. "Alexi. He's…visiting for a little while."

Unable to extend a hand, Pete nodded his head. "Nice to meet you."

"Hi," Alexi said.

Anne was silent; the smile, Amanda noticed, was even more forced than before.

"This is Pete and Anne," Amanda said to Alexi. "Lee and I work with them."

"We'd better be going," Anne said, suddenly. "We've got a meeting at three, back at IFF. We just stopped to fill up the department cookie jar." Amanda watched as Anne drew Pete away from the group before he could protest. She recognized the look of confusion on his face.

"Huh," Alexi said as Anne walked away. "She's friendly."

Amanda just raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "What can I tell you?" She sighed. "Let's go back to the Agency."

Alexi nodded. "To the Batmobile."


	5. Modem Operandi, Conclusion

****

Modem Operandi - Conclusion

By Fiona Robinson

__

(see part 1 for disclaimer) 

"Look, it wasn't ideal that they saw you, but now at least we know she isn't everything she says she is," Amanda said as she and Alexi sat with Lee and Billy at a picnic table in Rock Creek Park. They had decided it wasn't safe for Alexi to go back to the Agency.

"We don't know anything," Alexi said, his arms crossed defensively over his chest. "Just that Pete likes Camembert."

"That's not true. Think about how Anne reacted. It wasn't normal, by any stretch of the imagination. She isn't usually like that." Amanda leaned back in her chair. "She's hiding something."

Lee nodded. "I agree."

"But you can't pin anything on her," Billy said, sipping his coffee. 

"No." Amanda nodded. "Nothing that'll stick. Not yet." She stirred her coffee, sipped it, and added another cream. "I'm going to go talk to Sheila again. She might know a few other things about Anne."

Billy nodded. "Alexi, why don't you hang out with me for the rest of the day? We can steer clear of the Agency for a while." He grinned. "You can show me how to surf the Net."

****

Amanda was in the copier room, struggling with Tray Two of the copier, which the copier said wanted legal sized paper but was only equipped to handle letter, when Anne Hendrickson appeared beside her.

"You have to jiggle it a little," Anne said, "then shut it off and start it up again. Kind of a drag, I know, but it's hard to get these things serviced around here."

Amanda nodded, jiggling the tray as Anne instructed. "I'm used to the one upstairs," she confessed. "It never gives me any trouble - but it hardly ever gets used." She expected Anne to nod, laugh, and move on, but instead found the other woman standing expectantly beside her, waiting to speak.

"Amanda," she began, then laughed nervously. "You're going to think this is funny, but I need to apologize for the way we reacted when we met…Alex…."

"Alexi."

"Alexi…earlier." Anne wet her lips, shifting on her feet, and leaned against the photocopier. "It's just that Pete and I have both seen him before."

Amanda raised an eyebrow. "You have?"

Anne nodded, then blushed furiously. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but…Pete and I are seeing each other. We have been for a while."

Amanda nodded once. "Oh."

"And…well…Pete's married, you know. He says he's leaving his wife, he just can't find the right moment, and…so we've been trying to keep it a secret, from everyone." Anne crossed her arms over her chest. "When we were out in the park on Sunday, we saw Alexi, and he seemed to be acting a little strangely. Watching us. We thought he was a private investigator." She laughed. "It's funny, you'd think two highly-trained intelligence agents would be able to hide from a PI, wouldn't you?"

Amanda smiled indulgently. "You'd think," she agreed. "I don't think you have to worry," she told Anne. "He was probably watching you because he thought you were someone else."

Anne nodded. "Maybe." She took a deep breath. "Please don't tell anyone about me and Pete. I know you won't, I just…."

"Your secret's safe with me," Amanda said, holding up her right hand as if she was swearing an oath.

Anne didn't look terribly reassured. "Thanks," she said, patting the photocopier. "I'd better get back. See you later."

Amanda watched her go, Anne's perfume wafting around her and mixing with the smell of toner and warm paper. It took her a moment to realize what it was. Lilies of the valley.

****

Lee stood in the doorway to the Q Bureau for a moment, watching Amanda work. She was bent over the desk, deep in concentration, her hair falling from her shoulder, obscuring part of her face. He thought of all the times he'd stood and watched her work like this - especially before he'd even realized he loved her - and his mouth turned up in a little smile.

"Hey," he said, and she jumped.

"Oh…Lee. You startled me!" she gasped, sitting back in her chair. "I didn't hear you come in…."

He grinned at her. "I've got to practice somehow," he said, "and watching you seems to be the perfect way."

"Watching me?" She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow in question. "Did you like what you saw?"

"I always like what I see," he told her, holding out a hand to draw her to her feet. She slid her arms about him, settling in. "Where's Alexi?"

"Where's Alexi? It's after nine, we're still at work, you haven't seen me all day, and all you can ask is "where's Alexi"? I'm expecting a little better than that, Stetson."

"I just wanted to know if we were alone or not."

"He went out with Billy to get something to eat," she told him, snuggling even closer. "So we're as alone as we ever are in this place."

Lee sighed. "So Francine's going to come trooping in any second, is what you're saying,"

Amanda shook her head, laughing. "She left at six."

"Oh? Well, then…." He leaned in closer, and Amanda closed her eyes as his mouth touched hers. She was just starting to enjoy the kiss when the shrill ring of the telephone jerked them apart. She let out a frustrated groan and drew away from him, picking up the receiver. 

"Amanda speaking….Yes…." Lee watched her eyes go wide, she turned to face him. "Where are you?….We'll be right there." She put down the phone and grabbed his hand. "That was Billy. Someone just grabbed Alexi."

Billy followed Alexi's attackers across town, to a house in the neighborhood that seemed strangely familiar. He parked down the block and watched a man and a woman haul Alexi out of the car and up the front walk.

"So you were telling the truth the whole time," he muttered, looking at the street. "You really don't know DC that well, do you?"

He reached into his pocket for his cell phone, dialing Lee's number. He and Amanda were in the car, on their way. Billy gave them the address and waited.

It wasn't long before he saw Amanda's car coming down the street slowly, headlights off. Billy slid out of the driver's seat and met the two agents by their car. 

"They went inside," Billy said. 

"So this is the house he couldn't find," Lee muttered.

"We were a few blocks off," Amanda said. "But he had all the landmarks right."

Lee nodded, pushing the guilt he felt to the back of his mind. "Let's get him out of there."

"You and Billy go around the back," Amanda said. "I'll cover the front." She waited a beat. "Well?"

"What?" Lee asked.

"Aren't you going to tell me to stay in the car?"

Lee grinned. "Uh uh. You sound too sure of yourself." He drew his pistol and reached into the car to retrieve one for Billy. "Let's go."

The two men left Amanda hiding in the bushes at the front of the house and made their way around the block, through the alley to the backyard. They were almost at the door to the house when Billy tripped over something in the grass.

"You all right?" Lee asked, reaching out a steadying hand.

"What the hell," Billy muttered, looking down at the man on the ground. "He's out cold."

"It's Pete," Lee whispered. "I guess the honeymoon's over." He shook his head. "She really had him going."

Carefully, the two men made their way to the back door of the house. Lee slowly opened the door, his gun at the ready, and he and Billy went into the house. No sooner had they stepped into the kitchen than a man came through the door. Lee moved quickly and within seconds had the burly man pinned on the kitchen floor.

"Don't struggle," he said, "and be quiet."

The man swore and tried to turn his head, and Lee recognized an old, rather unsavory contact. "Stetson. Damn you."

"Well, well," Lee said, digging his knee into the large man's back. "If it isn't Charlie Marvin. Look, Billy, it's our old friend Chuck."

Billy tilted his head and peered at the man upside-down. "So it is. How are things down there, Charlie?"

"Let me up," Charlie, muttered, scowling at Lee. "Dammit, Stetson, you can't just barge in here."

"Can't I?" Lee shifted his weight, digging his knee deeper into Charlie's ribs. The large man let out a grunt. "Where's Alexi?"

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Where's Anne? Where's your girlfriend?"

With that, the men heard a door bang open near the front of the house. 

"If she's on the street, Amanda'll get her," Lee said, and Charlie laughed.

"I'd like to see that," he muttered. "She'll be long gone before Amanda knows what hit her."

Lee and Billy exchanged glances. "I'm going to check out the basement," Billy said.

Amanda chased Anne half a block before the other woman disappeared into the darkness. Angry with herself for losing the other agent, Amanda turned back toward the house to regroup, her cheek stinging and her nose throbbing. She didn't think Anne would get far, and she was worried about Alexi. Charlie had been right - for a moment she hadn't known what had hit her. A moment later she had been sure it was Anne, but the seconds she lost cost her.

She moved cautiously through the front door of the house, faintly hearing Lee's voice in the kitchen. She pushed open the door and found her husband handcuffing a large man to the refrigerator.

"Are you all right?" Lee asked her.

"I lost Anne," she said, frustrated.

He fished out his handkerchief. "Your nose is bleeding."

Amanda touched her upper lip and saw blood on her fingers. "She hit me." She shook her head. "I'm going to check out things upstairs."

Lee nodded, and Amanda headed upstairs, her gun ready, calling out for Alexi. She heard a muffled sound coming from behind a door in the hallway. Her gun ready, she drew open the door and found Alexi, bound and gagged, at the bottom of a linen closet.

"Oh, are you all right?" she asked, kneeling on the floor, trying to untie the knots around his ankles. Alexi nodded, his eyes wide, and Amanda heard a step behind her.

"He's fine," Anne said, and Amanda turned around to discover the other woman was holding a gun. "But I think you can put down your weapon now, Mrs. Stetson."

Amanda stayed completely still for a moment, as if weighing her options, before slowly placing her gun on the floor.

"You've been a thorn in my side from the beginning. All your theories… " Anne let out a short, clipped laugh. "I should have known better."

"I didn't have any theories about you," Amanda said. "I thought it was Sheila. We all thought it was Sheila. You did a good job."

Anne shook her head. "Not quite good enough, though, or you wouldn't be standing in my hallway." Her thumb flicked the safety off her pistol. "I have a plane to catch, so if you don't mind, I'll close this account right now."

Amanda felt a chill start in the pit of her stomach. Fear closed her throat. The most she could hope to do was dive out of the way - a moving target was hard to hit - but that wouldn't save Alexi. She felt the tension in her legs and as she moved, heard a gun go off. She came up with her own gun in her hands, expecting to feel a bullet tear through her body. Instead, she saw Anne sprawled on the hallway floor, beside Alexi, and Lee Stetson standing on the landing, lowering his gun.

Amanda let out a long breath, smiling shakily at her husband, who leaned over and pressed two fingers to Anne's throat, feeling for a pulse. He saw a red flower of blood appear on Anne's shoulder and felt her heartbeat under his fingertips.

"Are you okay?" he asked, picking up Anne's gun.

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine." Amanda laughed a little. "That was close."

"Too close," he said, stepping over Anne to kiss Amanda, firmly. A muffled sound from Alexi made him draw away from his wife. He leaned forward and loosened the gag around Alexi's mouth. "You okay?"

Alexi nodded, licking his lips.

Lee shook his head. "What is it with us and closets, anyway?"

****

Amanda stood on the front lawn of the house, watching as the paramedics loaded Anne's stretcher into their vehicle. The agents who had freed Charlie from the refrigerator escorted him toward a car, his hands behind his back. Billy was in the basement with another set of agents, dismantling Anne's computers and collecting evidence.

She folded her arms over her chest, chilly, and watched Alexi speak to more agents on the front porch. He finished and headed toward her, looking more hopeful than she'd ever seen him.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

Alexi nodded. "I have to go with them, I guess?"

Amanda nodded. "They have a few questions for you. Don't worry - they have questions for me and Lee, too."

Alexi was quiet for a moment. "Amanda…thanks for everything. You know - the place to stay. The clothes. For checking your email."

Amanda laughed, reaching out to give Alexi a warm hug. "No problem. Just see if you can stay out of trouble from now on, okay?"

Alexi laughed, too. "I'm sure as hell going to try. I've had enough of you Feds." He looks around, suddenly. "Where's Lee?"

"Sorting out a few things inside, I think. I'll tell him to catch up with you at the Agency."

"Okay. And Billy, too. I need to talk to him about a couple of things." Alexi sighed. "See you around."

"See you." Amanda watched Alexi nod toward the other agents - she thought it might be Palmer and Tyson, but it was hard to tell in the dark - and move toward their car. She felt a little lump in her throat, but she swallowed it and turned toward the house to find her husband.

Hours later, a weary Amanda stumbled into the Lee's office to find her husband and Billy talking to Pete Williams, who was sitting on the sofa with an ice pack against his forehead.

"I had no idea about any of this," Pete said, his shoulders drooping. "I thought Charlie was her brother."

"He wasn't," Lee said. "He's been involved in every type of scam in the book, though."

"I had no idea," Pete said again. "She just got really busy last week, and then today she broke it off. I came over tonight to talk to her."

"It's not your fault," Amanda said, sitting down beside Pete on the sofa. "She had a lot of people fooled."

"I just don't understand it," Pete said, shaking his head. "Why did she do it?"

"It started with her husband," Amanda said. "The rumors that were going around weren't just rumors - he really was stealing from his company. And he was doing it with Anne's help. When he died, she continued it - she was in the perfect position to set up false vendors all over the place. But things probably didn't get completely out of hand until she met Charlie."

"You mean with the bank," Lee said.

Amanda nodded. "Charlie saw the potential for Anne's operation to be much bigger. Until then, she'd just been squirreling money away, bit by bit. She had a substantial amount stashed away - but she was reliant on the Agency. I don't imagine it took much convincing for her to want to start up the bank."

"But then there was the audit at the Agency, and Sheila Marler took over Anne's position when you shuffled the staff," Billy said. "It's understandable that Anne would get a little antsy about it."

"Where do the security breaches fit in?"

"Charlie knew Alexi from fifteen years ago," Lee said. "The bust-up with ACM. When Anne told him there was going to be an audit, he figured they could get the "whiz kid" to help them cover it up. They were only supposed to distract us - Alexi was supposed to get in, delete Circuitech from our vendor files during one of the sweeps, and get out. But Alexi told them that deleting any file during the sweeps would send up an automatic flag to us, so he accessed random files instead." Lee shrugged. "He was afraid for his life. Luckily, Amanda picked up on the pattern and figured out what he was doing."

Pete nodded. "Anne played me like a violin," he muttered. "I was so…in love with her….I trusted her completely." He shook his head. "I even accused Sheila….God, I feel terrible."

"Don't," Lee said. "Let Amanda drive you home, and you can make up with your wife."

Pete's brow furrowed. "My wife? I'm not married."

"Have you got your toothbrush?" Amanda called to Lee, hearing him rummaging around upstairs.

"Yup. I bought a new one. Are you ready to go?"

"Pretty much." She smiled at him as he came down the stairs, her brown eyes twinkling, and he winked at her, setting a bag with the others near the front door. "I heard from Alexi this morning."

"Yeah?"

"He's starting his new job on Monday."

"That's great. So Billy came through for him, after all."

Amanda nodded. She sighed, suddenly, snapping hr purse closed. "I hope things work out for him. It'd be nice if he could just live a normal life for a while."

Lee smiled to himself, nodding a little. "A normal life," he mused. "Definitely underrated." He picked his car keys up from the table in the front hallway and turned to look at his wife, suddenly giving her the benefit of his smile. "Hey, you know what today is?" Lee asked, moving into the living room.

"What?" she asked, her eyebrows raised, double-checking that she had her passport. The look in his eye told her it was something special, she just couldn't be sure what.

"Fifteen years ago, you took Dan—"

"Dean."

Lee laughed. "Dean…to the train station."

"Really? Fifteen years ago…today?"

"Yeah."

"How did you know that?"

"When I was helping you and Billy look through all those files the other day, there was a report entry: Scarecrow loses package. Hands off to civilian, Amanda King."

"Really."

Lee nodded, sliding his arms around her. "But I like to think of it as the day that completely changed my life."

Amanda laughed. "Well, it certainly changed mine." She slid her arms about his waist. "All those red hats…"

"Whatever happened to Dean, anyway?"

Amanda shrugged. "He's probably still working for the weather bureau….For some reason," she planted a light kiss on Lee's mouth, "we completely lost touch with each other."

"Hmmm. Why do you suppose that is?"

She shook her head, her mouth still against Lee's, and smiled as he kissed her again. "Simple. There isn't enough adventure in cold fronts."

****


End file.
